


Painstakingly Drafted

by IneffableDoll



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Banter, Blasphemy, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Crowley Has Chronic Pain (Good Omens), Discorporation (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Genderfluid Aziraphale (Good Omens), Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Historical References, Holding Hands, Hugs, Humor, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Spouses, Ineffable Wives, Mutual Pining, No beta we fall like Crowley, Other, Pining, Rating for Language, Slow Burn, dubious metaphysical rules, headcanon soup, nonbinary people are magic I don’t make the rules, shuffling pronouns like God shuffles cards, they're not oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27440074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableDoll/pseuds/IneffableDoll
Summary: Crowley fell three times.The first Fall was from Heaven, the tumble through the firmament that shattered their wings and body. They still bore the physical marks of that, and always would.The second, they fell in love with humans. Humanity, the Earth, all of it. How could they do anything else?And the third time?Well.It was less a fall than a saunter vaguely downward.(COMPLETED.)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 165
Kudos: 131
Collections: Aspec-friendly Good Omens, The Good Omens Library





	1. my hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the fic and each chapter is from [“Eric’s Song” by Vienna Teng,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axgoppZ_7ic) which is a great Crowley/Aziraphale song and was a huge inspiration as I wrote this. Highly recommend giving it a listen!  
> I came across some fics a while ago in which Crowley has chronic pain, and I wanted to try my hand at it; it ended up running away from me into my longest fic yet and became a big ol’ love story. That said, I do not have chronic pain. I have researched it and spoken with someone with it, but I know no amount of Googling can substitute real experience. Because I am able-bodied, it’s a delicate element of this story to try and tell. Disabilities have overwhelmingly dreadful representation in our media at the hands of able-bodied folk, and I do not want this story to be yet another example of disappointing stereotypes (it being merely fan fic, be damned). I’ve tried to avoid them, but my intent does not mean I have succeeded. I hope I have done it all justice. Also, note that the chronic pain is always relevant, but this is primarily a love story, so don’t expect it to be the entire plot (though the first few chapters focus on it more).  
> [Complete list of Trigger Warnings: Mention of ableism (brief, not condoned), minor description of injuries, descriptions of pain, child death (not shown), vomiting, stabbing, torture (just mentioned), waterboarding (shown), mentions of triggers and trauma, suicide (in a canon-compliant referral to holy water), and rejection sensitive dysphoria. Everything on this list is brief and non-graphic, and none are the focus of the story. This jumps through history, so it is bound to get dark sometimes.]  
> I’ve been on tenterhooks wanting to get this out for you to read! I would’ve posted it a few weeks earlier, but right when I had it ready to go, I decided to throw out and rewrite about a third of it…and now it’s much better! This is a story that has been told here on AO3 many a time. But hey, you clicked on this, so I’m gonna bet that you’re just as besotted for the Ineffable Duo as I am and are fully prepared to read yet another through-the-years-slow-burn-kiss-kiss-fall-in-love story for these idiots.  
> (Crowley and Aziraphale’s pronouns switch frequently throughout the fic. I’d like to ask that you respect whatever pronouns are prevalent to whatever chapter you’re on if you comment! As Gaiman said, they’re not male, so don’t default to he/him, please. Respect genderfluidity!)  
> I sincerely hope you enjoy!  
> (I’m so sorry this note is so long lol)  
> Edit: Just adding in a note that there are no mouth kisses in this fic. I know that makes some people uncomfortable, so rest assured there are none here.

A few lingering droplets of sky water splattered against the rough exterior of the wall. Head cocked to the side, Crawly watched as the angel to their right slowly shifted their sodden white wings behind them, flopping them down with a gentle thud. Crawly could tell those feathers were going to take ages to dry out, while their own were untouched by the wet. The angel glanced sheepishly at Crawly, who grinned a smile full of sharp teeth.

“How angelic of you,” Crawly commented with a lifted eyebrow.

They frowned. “That is rather the point of being an angel.”

“Is that what they’re calling it, nowadays?” Crawly replied, patting a hand over their curls to make sure they weren’t wet. “Shielding demons from sky water is just the usual agenda for you feathery lot?”

The angel opened their mouth to speak before closing it again, gazing nervously over the wet sands. “Erm. Extending grace to a – a fellow creature is only natural.”

“Nothing personal, then?”

“Of course, not.”

“Hmm.” Crawly considered the strange angel – not at all like they’d expected. If being on Earth was like this, they wanted to spend as much time here as possible. It already looked interesting based on what they’d seen – though that sky water was just plain _weird._ Still, there was only so far even this angel’s mercy would last, and Crawly wasn’t about to push their luck right out the gate – so to speak. Best head out before things got smite-y. “Well, see you around, angel.”

“I’m not sure–“

Crawly took two steps backward and leapt off the edge of the wall, extending their long, black wings to catch the warm breeze. With a great flap, Crawly lifted themself into the air, feeling utterly weightless, free, for just a moment. They glanced back once to see the angel standing exactly where they’d been, watching them fly away from the Garden, unarmed and alone. Crawly turned away and flew opposite the sun.

A few black feathers shook loose as they soared, drifting gently down in a slow, steady fall.

~*{O}*~

Existence had been metaphysical in those early, formative days. Everyone was getting their bearings in this dim, damp space with no light. What was the absence of light? There’d always been light before, even where the starmakers worked, but this…it was cold, endlessly cold, and wet. They didn’t know it could be cold, what cold even was – only that there was no more warmth. Nothing of that endless white, that dry and soft touch of breath, a feather-light kiss within the skin.

_What is snow, Mother?_

_It’s very cold, my little angel._

_What is cold, then?_

_You’ll learn._

They tried to lift their wings, but they felt so heavy, and there was an ache there that hadn’t been. Revised, _ache_ wasn’t even close to the right word – it was the opposite of everything around them, of the cold rock against their cheek where they lay. It was hot, not in an excess of warmth but an excess of feeling, and a whimper escaped their lips as they huddled in on themself.

They tried to wrap their wings around their body, to shield from the cold, to relieve the hot, the burn, but they wouldn’t cooperate. The wings strained against movement, resisting, unable to answer the call.

Shuddering, they strained their neck and looked past their shoulder.

Their wings were _shattered._

Bones poked through flesh, skin burst and bled, stained red and black and crusted over. Not a single feather remained, each one torn from their form as they’d struggled to fly, as they’d fought for balance in swirling winds, tears wrenched from their scalded eyes.

Already, it felt hazy.

Where had they Fallen from?

What…did they lose?

Someone kicked them in the ribs, and they bent further into themself, feeling the pain echo across their body, reverberate is pulses, making them suddenly aware of the pain in their limbs, in their muscles. There was so much, and it was everywhere, burning away.

“Get up. Lucifer’zzz organizzing everyone.”

They knew the voice, and scraped for a name to put to it, but nothing came. “L-Lucifer?” they asked. They didn’t recognize their own voice. It sounded scorched, hoarse, like they’d been screaming for a long time.

“That’zz what he’s calling himzzelf now. We’ll get our namezz, soon, too.”

They looked up to see the figure standing above them, not terribly tall but nonetheless imposing, a silhouette against an already dark place. Their wings were tucked away, and their hair – black – was singed off unevenly, still smoking.

The person scoffed suddenly, leaning closer to their face and grasping their chin to tilt their face up, fingernails digging into flesh. “Ah, snake, then?” they said flatly. “Lucifer will like that. Now get up, you pathetic serpent.”

They couldn’t think. It was cold, and they were hot. So, they got up.

 _Crawly,_ Lucifer said later, and caressed their right cheek with a single finger, branding them as a snake belonging to this place, to Hell.

They watched as those around them – demons, all _demons,_ no longer angels – took to their new natures, this new place. They fought, they organized, they looked to Lucifer, who gazed down at all of them and commanded them with new names and new roles. _We are leaving behind what rejected us,_ he said. _We are creating something new that She cannot control. Our brethren who cut us down will know to fear what we have chosen to become._

It was dim down there. Cold. Damp, grey. Everything in them hurt, and there were so many demons around them, and _they_ were one too. They collapsed against a wall somewhere, sluffing down, ignoring the many, many feet and shapes that passed them by. Crawly didn’t bleed anymore, they didn’t break, but they hurt, and they hurt. Crawly hated it so much, and they missed…they missed…

_Mother, what are all these stars we’re making for? Where are they going to go?_

_Someplace I love dearly, as you will, too, little angel._

They didn’t know what they missed anymore, only that it was gone.

~*{O}*~

Having not been explicitly told when, exactly, Crawly was to return to Hell after “causing some trouble,” they decided no one could hold it against them if they took the chance to explore the surface of this new place, this “Earth” thing. There was no rule against it, after all – not one from Lucifer, anyway, whose rules were the only ones that demons were supposed to follow.

They flew off over the sands for some hours, leaving behind the Garden and the humans and the angel, and landed softly on their scaled feet at a rocky spot with some trees and a pond. As they touched down, they let their dark feathers trail through the wild, tangled grasses bordering this little...oasis, they supposed was the way to describe it. Like a tiny corner of the Garden, which was their only reference point for greenery.

They stood there for a moment, glancing about them with wide, unblinking eyes. They were alone there – or, at least, as alone as anyone can be. God was supposedly always watching, weren’t They?

They leaned against a tree and sat down slowly, spreading their legs out in the blades of grass. Legs, what a curious thing. Dangly and boney, at least on them. Their feet were covered entirely in black scales, dark as their wings, but scattered at the knobby ankles before fading into that pale skin that looked like sand. As far as they knew, it was the same body they’d worn when they’d been an angel, just a little different. Did that make it a body of Heaven, or of Hell? Tainted by Hell, perhaps? They weren’t sure, and there wasn’t anyone to ask anymore.

A lizard crawled over Crawly’s leg like they were merely a warm, soft stone, its tiny, wobbly feet awkward but determined. Whether it walked that way because it was new, or because that was how it was made to walk, Crawly couldn’t decide.

A shrill cry came from overhead, and they squinted against the setting sun to see – no, it wasn’t an angel, or a demon. The wings of a bird, dark against a white underbelly. It cried out again, apparently not from pain, but because it wanted to.

There was a sharp discomfort settling around their hips, and they shifted, drawing one leg closer to their torso. The pain spiked, and they grimaced even as they sighed. They’d wondered if being on Earth would make it any different, but no.

It ached, and in the sunshine, they were cold.

~*{O}*~

“Do you ever, um…” Crawly trailed off, unsure how to start.

“What?” the demon snarled. Ligur was his name, if Crawly recalled. Because of the lizard-aspect, apparently, but at least it was more of a name than _Crawly._ “Spit it out, snake.”

Crawly shifted uncomfortably from one scaled foot to the other, and not only because of the conversation. “Well, does your corporation hurt or anything?”

Ligur scowled at them threateningly. “What kind of question is that?”

Crawly wasn’t sure how to answer this. “Just wondering.”

“Are you threatening me, Crawly?”

“No, no, ‘course not.”

His orange eyes bore into them. “You’d better not.”

Crawly slithered off quickly, mentally berating themself. What had they been thinking, to ask _Ligur,_ of all people?

Crawly had been in Hell for too long. They weren’t sure that time had been invented yet, but whatever its predecessor was, it was unpleasant. The place had been fixed up a bit, signs affixed to doors and office spaces assigned, but it was no better for it. Pipes that led to who-knows-where leaked who-knows-what in the corridors. At least they’d stopped being able to smell the place after a while, growing numb to what was initially a barrage of mold mixed with blood and ash.

Crawly’s wings were almost entirely healed, and some new feathers were coming in, even darker than Hell was.

Everyone was taking to their new jobs as torturers, guards, so on. Some, like Crawly, hadn’t been assigned anywhere, yet.

“Ah, what to do with you, Crawly?” Lucifer had drawled from his throne, which was the first thing he’d arranged in the biggest room they could find in this labyrinth. “What’re you bad for?”

What few memories Crawly had from before they’d wound up here, as a demon with patchy black feathers and patchy scaled feet, told them little of what their skillset was. They knew they had been a starmaker, one of many, but how would that translate into demonic work? They had no idea. All they knew was that they were damp all the time, and they hated it. They wanted to be anywhere else.

“You can sneak into places, can’t you?” Lucifer said suddenly, struck with realization. “Since you’re a snake, you’d be able to get into places you’re not supposed to.”

Crawly tilted their head slightly but spoke with a convincing confidence. “Of course. Very sneaky, me.”

“Go topside, then,” Lucifer commanded, suddenly sure. “She’s making something called ‘Eden.’ Get up there and make some _trouble,_ Crawly.”

So, they did. They met a human, a girl named Eve. She asked them why God didn’t want the humans to eat from the tree, and Crawly told her it was a test of will, knowing it was a test of loyalty, and that was that.

Who could’ve known it was so dangerous to ask a question? How were they to know it was wrong?

~*{O}*~

Crawly returned to Hell hesitantly. They wanted to stay on Earth, but they couldn’t let on that they felt that way, as Hell was supposed to be where demons were, and the others seemed content there.

After recounting their deeds – leaving out the bit about talking to an angel, they got the sense Lucifer wouldn’t like that much – Lucifer actually _smiled_ at them. This big, awful, ugly smile with too many teeth.

“You’re to go back to Her little Earth project, Crawly,” he decided with a malicious glint to his black, soulless eyes. Maybe all demons were soulless, but Lucifer left no room for doubt. “There will be more humans one day, and it is your job to cause their downfall, just as you did those humans in the Garden.”

Crawly nodded, trying not to reveal any of their excitement at the prospect. Their heart was pounding in a delighted sort of way, something in them bouncing to return as soon as possible. Back to Earth, with its lizards and birds and grass! Maybe they’d even meet that weird angel again.

Though they were meant to head topside immediately, Crawly hesitated at the exit. For a moment, they watched the demons crushing in around them, jostling each other and falling into small brawls.

None of them gave any sign of being in pain.

Crawly wrapped their arms around themself. Why did their wings still burn, and their limbs still ache? It had been so long since then…but it never faded, as it seemed to for everyone else. Maybe their corporation had been damaged beyond repair.

They resolved to stop by the Department for Physical Forms. They didn’t want to, since dealing with corporate affairs was always a pain, but they didn’t want to go to Earth in a corporation that hurt all the time if they could go get a new one.

“What do you want?” the Head of the Department, Dantalion, growled. Her face was covered with the mask of a sobbing woman. Crawly had never seen her wear the same mask twice since she Fell, or seen her without one in general, and they understood she collected them obsessively. They wondered briefly what it was she had to hide. More importantly, Dantalion was the one in charge of approving corporations and whatever other stuff Crawly didn’t care about, which, of course, was why they were there.

“Hello to you, too,” Crawly replied on principle. Rudeness was par for the course among demons, but they got some satisfaction out of the stink eye it earned them to point it out – not that they could see it, with the mask in the way, but they knew it was there. “How do I get a new corporation?”

Dantalion scoffed. “You think I’ve got ‘em lying about for use at any moment?”

“Don’t you?”

“No. Takes time to make human bodies that fit demon souls. It’s craftsmanship, not mass production.”

“Rrrrright,” Crawly replied with a lifted eyebrow. “How long until I could get a new one, then?”

She looked Crawly up and down, which they could only tell because she moved her head to do so. Black robes draped over most of their body from the shoulders to the knees and red curls bounced down to their waist. “Why in Lucifer’s name do you need one?”

“Well…” Crawly remembered Ligur’s reaction and chose their words carefully. “I don’t think it healed properly.”

“From what? Get in a fight?”

Crowley crossed their arms. “No, but it, well…”

Dantalion tapped her long, yellow fingernails on her desk, which was covered in loose files, papers, and ratty books that molded as they spoke. When she replied, Crawly got the distinct impression that she was _smiling_ at him. “Why, are you in _pain,_ Crawly?”

Crawly had the sensation of missing a step on a flight on stairs, not that stairs were a thing, yet. They swiftly backtracked, “No, of course, I’m not. I’m perfectly good – perfectly fine, that is. Just – um, uh, wondered if there was a corporation without the scales! Humans don’t have them, Don’t want ‘em questioning anything too much.”

Dantalion leaned back, sounding bored again. “Oh, we can’t do anything about the feet and eyes, or the tongue thing. Can’t expect to wear a corporation without a bit of your aspect seeping through.”

Crawly had no idea what she was talking about with the eyes; what did they look like? What were they supposed to look like? Their feet obviously wasn’t standard, but they hadn’t seen their own face since becoming a demon, since all the mirrors had been broken in all the fights or were impossible to clean. They made a mental note to take a peek as soon as possible. “So, if I’m wearing this flesh bag, it’s still affected by my demon-y…ness?” they ventured.

Dantalion glared at them like they’d said something offensive. “When residing within a human-shaped corporation, your – ugh – _demon-y-ness_ will, in fact, seep through in several ways. Souls show up through the eyes, for example. Nothing we can do about that. Now, get out and stop wasting my time with your stupid questions.”

Idly wondering again if demons had souls to speak of, Crawly huffed a theatrical sigh and swiveled on their heel, waving a hand as they went. Deep inside, they shoved away their disappointment and confusion, and the thousand questions therein that they knew to keep to themself. “Whatever.”

“You’d better take care of that corporation, Crawly!” Dantalion shouted after them. “Those things take so much oxygen and carbon to make!”

~*{O}*~

Once on Earth, Crawly paused, eyes closed, and took a deep, long breath, allowing their lungs to take in every ounce of air they could manage, until they felt fit to burst. Slowly, they released the breath back out into the world, marveling at the strange but oddly wonderful sensation of _breathing_. The air in Hell tasted acrid, charred, and sour. But Earth – Earth tasted fresh, with just a touch of sweetness and a spicy tang.

Crawly continued their explorations of the surrounding areas, including pinpointing where the humans were now. It had been a surprising amount of time since they were last here, judging by the two miniature humans running and dodging between Eve’s legs as she gathered kindling around the forest that they’d settled in. They weren’t sure where Adam was, but no doubt he was around. Eve laughed and scolded the smaller beings lightly, and the two miniature humans each gave a pitiful whine before helping pick up sticks.

Crawly felt something deep inside them pang at the sound of the laughter, at their bursting smiles. They had never seen anything like that in Hell. With so few memories of Heaven – all of them vague – they wondered if that was what it had been like, Before. Laughter. Joy. And, well, _love,_ by the looks of it.

What a foreign thing.

They left them there, deciding they’d wait until there were more of the humans to start causing further trouble. They’d already done enough with Eve as it was.

At a pond, Crawly discovered what Dantalion had referred to about the eyes in their reflection, and additionally understood one of their earliest memories with Beelzebub before they got their name. They’d seen that Eve’s eyes were brown and had round black centers when they’d approached her in the Garden as a snake, but Crawly’s were bright yellow and the pupils were thin, like their snake form. Odd. It was a bit comforting, in a way, to see something familiar on this strange and confusing body.

They studied the sigil on the side of their face, tracing the snake where it curved around itself. They knew that it was a brand, a way for Lucifer to remind Crawly that they were not their own. At least it didn’t hurt.

Speaking of, the strange pains in their body continued as they wandered and explored, alternating between flying and walking. Well, the pains weren’t strange, not anymore. They were all the same aches they’d had in their joints and muscles since they Fell, which now seemed so long ago. But their body made it feel fresh, the pain – physical and otherwise.

They couldn’t seem to heal.

Their broken wings had fixed up, eventually. Bones fused together, if at some wonky angles, skin scabbed over and scarred. Feathers grew back in, specters of their predecessors. And yet, the same pain they’d experienced that first day remained.

It fluctuated. Sometimes it was worse, sometimes it was better, but always, it was _there,_ living in their skin – or perhaps it _was_ their skin.

It was a wound deeper than flesh.

Taking in great, deep breaths of the cooling desert air and feeling the rise and fall of their ribcage, Crawly stared at the darkening sky. Carefully, they mentally scanned their body for injuries or causes of wear. As usual, they found nothing. No source, no cause. It was just there, indescribable, unable to be ignored.

But that was nothing new, not by now. But what was new was this world, and they wanted to see it, wanted to learn it. It was dry, and it was warm, and they took another deep breath, staring up at the sky.

_Mother, what is it you’ve been making?_

_That’s enough questions, now, little angel._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dantalion is a demon from “The Lesser Key of Solomon,” a book made in the 17th century all about demonology and such. Dantalion is a demon of varying genders with multiple faces (which I changed into an obsession for collecting masks because why not), depicted holding a book, who is said to know the thoughts of humans and be capable of changing them at will. They are also known for teaching arts and sciences, which is the aspect I leaned into, making them someone who combines the sciences of making human forms with the art of making them fit each demon. Did I overthink this? Oh, definitely.  
> Chapter two will be up tomorrow!


	2. there’s a distance erased with the greatest of ease

Getting used to the sky and the concept of night cycles was jarring at first, but Crawly acclimated. The passage of time, on this planet, soon showed itself to be measured by the fluctuation of temperatures in addition to whatever the Hell that really close star was doing there. The changes in the trees and air weren’t too dramatic in places like deserts, but when Crawly traveled especially far, they found mountains, and even got to learn what snow was. Pretty, but impractical. And cold, as they’d known it was. But they didn’t know what that _meant_ until now.

They doubted humans would ever dare live in places with snow; they’d have to be completely mental to try it.

By the time Crawly made their way back toward where they remembered Eden being, they found the first human settlement of sorts, east of where they recalled Eden to be. The Garden itself had mysteriously vanished from the endless sands, though it was possible they’d gotten their directions screwed up somewhere in there. More likely, God had plucked that particular oasis off the Earth when no one was looking.

Enough time had passed for those little humans around Eve to grow taller – though, oddly, only one of them was around, named Cain, and he was apparently the founder of this place they called Enoch. More tiny humans had appeared, and those also got taller and made more tiny humans. Crawly was amazed at how many had come from just those two, so fast – though, perhaps not as quickly as they expected, in observing the animal kingdom, which seemed to multiply at an alarming rate. What was with all these rabbits?

Still, the fact that all those tiny humans came from the stomach of one taller human? Weird. Who came up with crap like that?

Well, they knew Who, but whatever.

The humans had also erected shelters. Not tall and gray and round like in Eden, but boxier, a bit like the rooms in Hell, yet nothing like them at all. They were shorter than Eden’s walls – not much taller than the humans themselves – and built with sticks and logs and dirt and different types of Earth materials they didn’t know the names for. Or maybe they didn’t _have_ names yet. They’d have to ask the humans.

Crawly disguised themself easily as a human, though they did get odd looks for their strange, bright flesh and hair that looked like fire. In addition, there were the inky black scales and yellow, slitted eyes to contend with. Crawly found that the more pain they were in, the less control they had over these snake-like features. Scales rippled up their legs and back, and a few liked to cling to their arms like dark, dark freckles – which they also had an abundance of, across the cheeks especially. But their appearance was strange enough, overall, that no one questioned the more demonic aspects of their form.

Eve and Adam weren’t in Enoch, though the reason why was anyone’s guess. It was for the best. It would be just like that clever girl to somehow recognize them as the snake that got them kicked out of the Garden – though, Crawly personally felt that was more something to blame God for.

Punishing curiosity was Their thing, after all, not Crawly’s.

~*{O}*~

Adam, flaming sword in hand, traversed the sands at Eve’s side. There was an endless expanse of hot desert and that dark mass that had crawled from the horizon didn’t seem to be a portend of anything helpful.

Crawly stood beside an angel, and it didn’t feel so strange as it should have. There was still something off about it all, something difficult to put to words. What was it the angel had said before? They’d had a word for it.

On instinct, when something began falling from the sky, Crawly took a step closer to the angel, just as Eve did to her companion in the distance. There was a soft _whoosh,_ and Crawly flinched when a shadow passed over their face. They looked up cautiously, only to see a shield of white feathers overhead, rows of pristine and delicate shafts, guarding them against the tiny things that were falling from above.

Crawly glanced at the angel. They were still watching Adam and Eve steadfastly, as though they had entirely forgotten Crawly was even there. Like lifting their wing over a demon’s head had just been instinct, too.

Every rainfall following the first, Crawly thought of that white wing, and the way the angel grew steadily more drenched until they shivered. Crawly’s feet were cold, splashed by the heavy water droplets splattering the flat rock around them, but the rest of them was dry. It was cold, but it was _dry,_ all because this angel at their side held a wing over their head, even as it grew heavy, and long after they could no longer see Adam’s sword through the storm. Long after there was any excuse. Maybe it was instinct to lift it, but they _chose_ to keep it there. For once, Crawly knew better than to question it.

Aloud, anyway.

~*{O}*~

The following centuries were…a learning experience.

The world had so much to offer, aside from what grew on it. It was what the humans were _doing with it_ that Crawly quickly found they were addicted to observing and learning about. Humans took what the Earth produced, and they cultivated it, experimented with it, and kept…making things out of it. They didn’t ask if they could or should, or how or why, they just did it. They built structures and tools, and started making _art._

Crawly was dumbfounded when the humans took in the snowy tundra and decided, “Yes, I think I’ll live here,” and then they _did._

_What the fuck._

Work came from Hell in the form of seemingly random temptations, delivered by possessing a nearby bug or animal and speaking through it. _Tempt someone to steal this man’s goat, get this one to lie with that person or another, start an argument between two neighbors,_ yadda yadda. Crawly found the work came easily to them, like a reflex they never knew they had. They didn’t always do it _exactly_ how Hell ordered them to, sometimes taking a more creative or scenic route, but hey, Hell couldn’t argue with the results.

They found that working temptations often gave them the opportunity to learn more about the world of the humans. This wasn’t always an enjoyable thing, for, as it turned out, the knowledge of good and evil didn’t mean the humans would invariably choose good, regardless of what Crawly did. Or perhaps it was all a chain effect of that very first job with the apple. Maybe it was just humans.

But what Crawly liked best about humans was their creativity.

There was a moment when he passed through a small camp of humans, just going through to do some little job involving some sisters and a bear, when an old man called out to them.

“You, there, with the bright hair!” he called in a crackly voice. “What’re you doing?”

“Just passing through on my way north,” Crawly replied automatically, having used this answer many a time before now.

“Well, where’s your walking stick?”

Crawly blinked slowly. “My what?”

The old man gestured to Crawly’s legs. Crawly tended to walk a bit strange, something like a limp that could also be described as _sashaying_. It wasn’t intentional, but their overly flexible body and the hot, prickly aches that tended to settle in their hips meant it was simply the way they moved. That day, it was admittedly more pronounced than usual. They fully intended to collapse in a haystack or something after the temptation was done.

“Erm.” Crawly hesitated. “I…uh, don’t have one?”

The old man shook his head disapprovingly, and Crawly watched in fascination as he hobbled over and thrust his own stick – which seemed to just be a, well, stick, but stripped of bark and oiled to look shiny and fresh. “Take mine,” he stated.

Crawly stared at it uncomprehendingly. “…What?”

“My granddaughter can find a new one in the woods for me, but you need one for your travels.”

They reached a hesitant hand out and took the stick from him. “Erm. Uh.”

The man nodded in satisfaction. “Journey well, stranger.”

He walked off a bit painfully, leaving Crawly gaping, holding a stick, and completely dumbfounded. They’d never been given anything before, aside from a name – that they didn’t much like, to be honest – and they had no idea what to make of it.

The stick turned out to be quite helpful on some days, even if it did transfer some of the pain to their arms and neck. Their legs always seemed to have it the worst, so it was a – well, Crawly was hardly going to use the word _godsend,_ but a human-send, maybe. It was definitely another point in the humans’ favor, regardless.

Though it wasn’t called “chronic pain” at the time, Crawly learned that some humans had similar conditions to what Crawly dealt with because of the Fall, though humans’ didn’t necessarily have a discernible cause. It was to these people that Crawly was most drawn, and from them, they learned different methods of attempting to ease the pain, like that walking stick, which they used until not even miracles could keep it together. After that, they always got replacements from human craftspeople.

They already knew their pain was not about avoidance so much as _management_ , but the humans had so many creative ways of managing theirs, from breathing exercises to stretches to making little contraptions to hold hot water or ice and pressing those against the aches. Crawly was amazed by it all.

Their human corporation had needs they didn’t have to fulfill, like hydration, nutrition, and sleep, but the latter Crawly found they very much liked. It worked wonders for the sheer mental exhaustion, and it gave their body a reprieve from holding them up all day. They wished sleeping had been invented when they’d first Fallen.

Some humans were…horrible about it, the “invisible” pain in some people’s bodies, including Crawly’s. They treated Crawly – and those like them – as though their pain, due to its lack of obvious visibility, was made up for attention or some other bullshit – or even that it was a sign of “the devil’s influence”; that one at least made Crawly laugh. Still, those humans didn’t bear thinking about. Crawly took great pleasure in constructing inconveniences for those humans specifically, and if it ended up helping or protecting some person with a disability in the same village? Well, Crawly didn’t have a say in the side effects of their wiles and that was most likely a coincidence.

A few humans had tried to “help” them, fleetingly, over the years, in their own…special way. That old man with the stick, of course. Then, there was a woman who suddenly took their arm and walked them to the local healer, despite their protests, because she was convinced that the local healer could use enchantments to remove Crawly’s aches. A child found them on a bad pain day and kissed their elbow to make it better, which caused Crawly to fall into a fit of laughter – the best distraction from it all.

There was something amazing about this world. Hell made boredom seem like a hobby, because then at least they’d be feeling something. But here…Crawly felt that they could spend thousands of years here and never get bored.

Even if it was a bit lonely, sometimes, to have no one permanent to share it with. Human lives were so fleeting.

~*{O}*~

“Erm. H-Hello.”

Crawly slowly opened their eyes, blinking in the sunlight. They were lounging in a field a short way from a small human congregation they’d been hanging around, near a river. Humans seemed to like living around bodies of water, probably because of that whole thing where they needed water to live. If ever Crawly wanted to find some humans, they just looked for a river and followed it. That was how they’d found this one.

A shadow had fallen over their face, and they looked up to see, of all things, a familiar figure in white looking down at them with a confused expression.

They’d assumed that the angel on the wall was assigned back to Heaven after the Garden disappeared, and yet, here they were, a couple of centuries later, backlit with streaming sunshine as though to emulate the hidden halo. Their face was scrunched up, blinking rapidly as their eyes flicked over Crawly’s sprawling figure in the grasses, ankles crossed, and hands folded behind their head.

“Hey, angel,” Crawly replied, flashing a grin to hide the shock. “What an unexpected surprise.”

“Yes. Quite.” The angel pressed their lips together. “Are you, erm…that is…what are you doing, exactly?”

Crawly lifted their eyebrows. “Wha’d’you mean?”

The angel gestured a hand to indicate Crawly’s…everything. “You’re…lying down? In the grass?”

“Yeah. It’s called _basking._ You should try it. ‘S comfy.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Crawly sat up to lean on their elbows. “It’s all God’s green Earth, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you be appreciating it properly?”

Squinting, the angel took a step back with a light shake of the head. A shaft of light fell back over Crawly’s face with the movement. “That’s not – I suppose there are many ways to appreciate the Almighty’s glorious creation,” they replied carefully, eyebrows scrunched low.

The demon scoffed. “Sure. So, what is it?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve come over here for a reason, right?”

The angel sniffed. “I heard there was a ‘redheaded spirit’ that has been haunting the field by this lovely village the past few days and wondered if that might be you, the notorious Serpent of Eden.”

Crawly grinned at the moniker. They’d heard it around a few times and couldn’t help but take a little pride in it. “But of course. I’m up to no good, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

A few beats of silence passed, Crawly staring at the angel’s profile and the angel looking pointedly anywhere but at the demon.

“What’s your name?” Crawly found themself asking, just to break the quiet.

“What?”

“Name. Yours.”

“Oh, did I not introduce myself before?” They looked thoroughly perturbed. “I apologize, that was very rude of me.”

Crawly bit back a laugh. A polite apology from an angel was so far down the list of things they’d expected that day that it wasn’t even on it. They’d have sooner expected the Earth to rotate the other way. “It was a busy day, you had a lot on your mind,” Crawly said.

“Ah. Yes, of course.” The angel folded their hands back in front of them. “Well, my name is – that is, I am the Angel of the Lord Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate. Former. Well, that’s the _official_ title. I’m actually a Principality stationed on Earth.” They clamped their mouth shut, looking rather like they hadn’t meant to say so much.

Crawly touched their hand to their nose. “Fancy.”

“Uh, I suppose.” Aziraphale gave them a strange look. “Why did you do that?” they asked, touching their hand to their own nose. 

“It’s the way the humans greet each other around here.”

Aziraphale blinked. “I know that. But why do _you_ know that?”

Crawly shrugged. “Gotta get to know the humans to tempt them, don’t I?” In truth, they had just learned it because they were curious about human things, but the angel didn’t need to know that.

The angel startled a bit, as though remembering they were conversing with a demon. They consciously took a step backward. “Ah, yes, quite right. Well.”

“Bet that we’ll be seeing each other around, Aziraphale,” Crawly commented, meaning it this time. “Since we’re both stationed here.”

“Y-Yes, I’m sure we will, rather,” they stammered.

“Stay out of trouble, then.” They lifted a hand in a wave.

Aziraphale scoffed. “I’m an angel, of course I won’t be getting into trouble!”

“Ah, yes. You probably couldn’t do the wrong thing if you tried.”

“Just as you couldn’t do the _right_ thing.”

“’Course.”

There was a pause. “Well then, goodbye, Crawly,” Aziraphale said.

Crawly didn’t reply, listening to the footsteps through the long grass back toward the human settlement. How strange, that this angel had – twice now – not smote the demon who specifically breached _their_ wall and disrupted _their_ job to protect the humans. Despite every possible reason to hate and attack them, Aziraphale instead had approached them, lying defenseless in the grass like a sunning snake, and _had a conversation with them._ This Aziraphale was as weird as the humans were.

With a start, they realized the angel had remembered their name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Even if it was a bit lonely, sometimes, to have no one permanent to share it with.”  
> *Az appears in following scene*  
> Me @ me: Y’ain’t subtle


	3. I’ve got darkness and fears to appease

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this chapter a day early because I'm gonna be really busy tomorrow, and I'm not sure if I'll have much free time/energy. Enjoy!

It was raining again. Crawly loved the rain, had always enjoyed the scent and the sounds. It was calming, a little nostalgic, and made the world feel simple and small. He’d find a bit of shelter, a tree or a hut to kip in, a cave full of things that also sought refuge from the drizzle. There was something intimate in that secluded space as he watched the rain splatter the Earth’s surface. Rejuvenation, life – that was rain. And while he didn’t fancy the cold and the wet on his body, it was weather he couldn’t help but like.

He didn’t like it much now.

“Not the kids. You can’t kill _kids,”_ Crawly snarled, a gust of wind tossing his long hair into his face. Inexpertly done braids, weaved by tiny, eager hands, caught on his nose as he shuddered from – well, not just cold.

Aziraphale was making some excuses, but, for the first time to memory, Crawly wasn’t listening to him. He didn’t want to hear why an Angel of the Lord thought it was okay to kill hundreds – no, thousands – of innocent people, of innocent children. God got to have Their little temper tantrums, and whoever got in the way just had the deal with the blessed consequences, huh? As usual, God didn’t care about anyone but Themself, and despite what he’d hoped, the angel _clearly_ felt the same.

“Can’t you do something about it?” Crawly shouted over the storm, knowing he was being unreasonable. “You’re the only angel assigned on Earth; surely they’d listen to you!”

Aziraphale shuddered. “No, they don’t. They wouldn’t. I-I can’t go against Her plan.”

“Fuck Their plan. Thissss isss the kind of thing you’d expect of _my_ lot.” His hiss made an appearance, as it often did when stressed or in pain. “It’ssss wrong!”

Aziraphale looked at him. His anxious folds, fingers tugging on themselves. Despite everything, the warring emotions twisting his face and morality crumbling to bits around them, Aziraphale suddenly was frozen, looking at Crawly and nothing else. His eyes pinned him there, and he stared back, unblinking. “You…you love them, don’t you?” Aziraphale whispered, and it was loud, louder than the rain. “The humans. You care.”

Rain plastered hair against Crawly’s jaw, against his cheek, against the cold skin of him. The world around him was cold and wet again, and he was fire, still fire, unquenchable. His eyes blazed, and he didn’t answer as he turned and stalked away.

Crawly did what he could. The Ark had God’s Blessing and he couldn’t get near it, but he could direct the kids there. He knew some of Noah’s sons and their wives, and they were good people. They agreed with almost no temptation at all to smuggle the children onto the big boat, to pass them off as their own. There were enough among those on board that Crawly was sure that Noah – focused so on the task at hand, on the words of God whispered in his ear – wouldn’t notice the extra tykes underfoot.

When the flooding began, Crawly spread his wings and he flew to the east, where the rains did not touch to Earth with a vehemence. There, humans were busy inventing astronomy, studying the stars Crawly had once worked among, crafting starstuff and stirring nebulas. He watched them observe the phases of the moon and write it all down, and he tried not to think of where he’d come from and what he’d seen floating in the rising waters.

He thought of Aziraphale.

_You love them, don’t you?_

Of course, he did. Of course. How could he do anything else?

~*{O}*~

“Crawly.”

He jumped at the voice, seemingly right by his ear. Crawly looked around, but the nearest person was out in the field, apparently poking at the soil in what was supposed to be a helpful fashion. It took a moment to place that the voice had not been that of a human, but a demon.

“Yeah?” he answered cautiously, eyes darting about.

“You botched up that temptation with the pregnant woman,” the voice said. There was a buzzing, and Crawly spotted the fly around his head. Probably Beelzebub, then. They really bought into their whole fly motif thing.

“No, I didn’t.”

“We inzztructed you to tempt her to kill her offspring. But the baby izzz alive, Crawly.”

Crawly shrugged, even though Hell didn’t use visual input when possessing creatures. Something about Earth disrupting the signal, different wavelengths, ethereal interference, whatever. “Yeah, but she gave it to that man who’s been robbing his neighbors by milking their cows in the middle of the night. The kid’ll grow up to be a thief.”

The fly buzzed at him in a way that gave the distinct impression of disapproval. “That’zzz not what we azzzked you to do, Crawly.”

“Think of all the sin that kid will cause by being alive. It’s a waste to kill it now when we could use it later.” He smirked a bit, sure they’d be able to hear it in his tone. “You’ve been telling me to think about craftsmanship, yeah? Well, this is how we do that.”

The fly whirred again, bobbing up and down. “Do zzzomething with the kid in the future, then, and report back.” The fly dropped to the ground, it’s little legs already curling and shriveling, as the connection was cut.

Crawly sighed deeply, running both hands over his face. That’d been a big risk to go against a direct and specific temptation like that, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was pitiful, really, and he knew he could get in a lot of trouble for this if he kept it up.

But he’d seen that little child when they were born to that poor, tired woman, already raising nine children. She had nothing left to give, but the child had so much to live for. He could already see the spark of creativity in the baby’s eyes.

“They’ll be taken care of,” Crawly whispered to her as she breathed heavily from labor pains, the midwife miraculously distracted with something in the other room. “You will know that they are safe and healthy. And they will be.” She nodded, miraculously unafraid, and fell asleep.

He took the little child to that man, living off the scraps of his neighbors, stolen goods and gifts alike, heartbroken after the loss of his lover. He’d always wanted a child to raise as his own and couldn’t find the motivation to care for himself when he didn’t have anyone to share his life with. The baby would be loved, there. Safe. The child and their father would flourish – Crawly made sure of that.

Crawly crushed the dead fly underfoot and sighed again. He couldn’t tell if the humans were making him soft, or if he had already been this pathetic all along. Maybe he’d been like this when he was an angel. Putting his own worries and thoughts over the commands of those he was meant to follow.

Then he learned of the Flood a few years later, and knew that, either way, he was utterly lost to this place and those who called it home. And that he, undeniably, was one of them.

~*{O}*~

A thousand years of human history and some change passed by. What had been lost was rebuilt, what remained was reimagined, and rainbows appeared after each rainfall – a good omen of what was to come and a reminder that God promised new, terrifying methods of punishment in the future.

Crawly had not seen that angel, Aziraphale, since they stood outside the ark, though that was perhaps to be expected. Humans were spreading farther and farther across the planet’s surface and it was unlikely that they would ever be in the same place. So many places for an angel and a demon to work; why might they ever run into each other?

Crawly didn’t particularly want to, thinking of how Aziraphale had tried to excuse the Almighty’s actions, as though it was _ever_ okay to-

Well. Crawly was mad at God, but that wasn’t new. No need to dwell on it.

Naturally, when she saw Aziraphale again, it was on a bad pain day, because the universe liked to mess with her. Crawly typically hid away somewhere when the pain spiked – or gritted her teeth and pretended she was fine when she had to. She spent most of her time pretending she wasn’t in pain to keep attention off, and it was a well-worn habit to tuck it away for private consideration.

However, that day, she’d barely managed her temptation job before practically keeling over in the middle of the market. The pain was immense, burning through her legs; her hips were twisted through with sensations like daggers, both icy and hot at once, striking up her back muscles as scales rippled up her limbs and spine. Simply standing was too much, and she fought for the strength to distract the humans around her so she could stumble off without being followed.

She got herself to the edge of town and ducked into the nearby woods, too disoriented to even try finding an inn and dealing with things like _conversation_ and possibly _stairs._ Awful invention, stairs. Awful.

She didn’t hesitate to curl up as soon as she was alone, half-hidden by a large bush and shivering in a bed of dirt and fallen leaves. Even in her human corporation, she huddled around her belly like a snake, protecting her body heat like it may be stolen from some outside influence. The cold of the late-autumn world was in stark contrast to the feverish heat in her body. She breathed a sigh of relief at the cool touch.

She savored the quiet loneliness, drifting on the edge of consciousness, when a voice disrupted her peace, causing her to jolt in surprise. Crunchy footsteps joined the voice. “Crawly? Crawly, are you out here?”

Crawly peeked an eye open in time to see a blurry white figure appear among the orange and brown of the woods. It was obviously Aziraphale, and she cringed, trying to make herself smaller. She couldn’t deal with him right now and was sure he would demand some sort of explanation of her.

“Crawly, is that you?” the angel said, having apparently spotted her.

Unable to reply, she squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped herself tighter, feeling a new wave of pain crash down, scales crawling up onto her face.

“Ah, hello,” Aziraphale said pleasantly, if hesitantly, like he didn’t know what to think of what he was seeing. Their last conversation was likely crossing his mind, as well. “Um, I’ve only just gotten to town. Apparently, someone in black with red hair vanished at the edge of the woods an hour or so past, and I wondered, well…”

Crawly fought for a semblance of her usual humor, deflecting anything and everything with sarcasm. It took every ounce of her willpower for her voice not to tremble, but it was a near-thing even then. “Well, I’ll let you know if I sssssee her. Could be kidnapped by fae.”

Aziraphale offered a huff of a laugh, still tentative. “Right.”

Crawly looked up at him, but her vision was still so blurred, like her body refused to put any effort into the functionality of her senses when her every nerve was abuzz with a tremendous, twisting ache. She closed her eyes again, the world too bright even in the dimming woods.

The angel finally seemed to give in to his urge and asked carefully, “Is this, um, a different kind of…basking, then?”

Crawly swallowed, thinking of a time now centuries past, lying in the grass and an angel standing at her side. “Ssssure.”

“It doesn’t seem like much fun.” His tone was forcibly neutral, neither accusing nor casual.

“Nah. ‘S fine. Loadsssss of fun. Fun city.”

She could practically see Aziraphale’s furrowed brow. “Crawly, really now. Are you hurt? You didn’t forget to turn off heatstroke in your corporation, did you? I know the summers are so much worse in this area. Though it has gotten chilly lately…”

Crawly breathed in and out slowly, flicking her tongue in annoyance, which had gone long and forked. Both the angel’s line of questioning and the searing cramp below her skull was making her uncomfortable. She shifted, hoping to find a better position, and her whole body visibly shuddered at the spike of heat that consumed her.

“Crawly?” Aziraphale said again, more softly, as to a child.

“I. Am. Fine,” she spat through clenched teeth.

“You’re not–“

“Leave it alone.”

A tense silence fell. Crawly focused on not making a single sound to indicate what she was going through. She knew that just by being there she was making herself vulnerable to the angel, but she had no ability to move away.

After a few minutes, Aziraphale sat down beside Crawly and pulled out something from the bag he’d had slung over his shoulder. He started making some jerky movements, soft hums, and there was the occasional sound of scraping.

“What’re you…?” Crawly mumbled.

The sounds and movements paused. “Woodcarving. I’ve taken it up recently, though I’m…not very good at it,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Hmm.”

The silence returned in full force, unbreakable but for the sounds of Aziraphale’s craft, and Crawly allowed herself to be drawn into it, falling asleep without stopping to consider how unwise it might be to do so.

It was becoming increasingly apparent that her body implicitly trusted Aziraphale more than her mind did.

The first thing Crawly became aware of, some indeterminable amount of time later, was warmth. Not a fire that shot through her veins, boiling her blood and cramping her muscles, but a mild one. The sweet, intoxicating heat of a strong alcohol that severed her pain receptors for a brief time. The puff of a hot breath against chilled palms, rubbed together for friction. The comforting glow of a candle in the middle of unyielding, gentle darkness.

Crawly slowly allowed consciousness to return to her. Trying to move as little as possible, she looked around. She remained exactly where she’d fallen asleep, and the darkness indicated it was nighttime. A few stars shivered overhead, peeking between the fluffy tree branches, which were laden sparsely with yellow leaves and growths, edges cast in an orange glow. A small but effective campfire flickered nearby, set in a perfect circle of lumpy stones.

Crawly gingerly tested her body, finding that sleep had removed some of the ache, but not enough to move too suddenly. Her scales were still patchy across her face and shoulders, like pinpricks of darkness over pale skin – the opposite to the shimmering Heavens.

“Ah, you’re awake!” Crawly jumped at the voice. Aziraphale approached from the shadows, carrying a few logs and setting them by the fire. They looked like chunks of wood cut by a human tool, not just fallen branches, and Crawly wondered if the angel knew logs didn’t look like that naturally, or if he had simply assumed that they came that way. Either way was funny.

“Yup, jussst took a little nap,” she said airily.

“Ah, so that was because you were sleepy?”

“Um. Yesss.”

Aziraphale looked at her like he could see straight into her heart – a human thought, that she even had a heart beyond the literal sense, but an apt one, regardless. “You’re…you’re lying, aren’t you?” he stammered.

Crawly eased herself onto her back carefully. “’M a demon. What’d you expect, exactly?”

“I suppose that’s true…” He didn’t sound as convinced as he usually did.

“Don’t overthink it. You’ll hurt yoursssself,” Crawly snarked, earning an offended scoff that caused a reluctant grin to spread across her face. How odd. The scales felt strange while smiling – she was sure she had never smiled when they got this bad before.

They held eye contact for a long moment before Aziraphale looked away. “I-I wanted t-to…to tell you about those kids,” he said in a rush.

“What?”

“The kids you…smuggled onto the ark.”

The smile slid off her face. “You knew about that?” she whispered, suddenly hoarse.

He nodded. “I was the one meant to ensure only the _right_ people were aboard.”

“Then – then, did you…” Something like a stone clattered in her stomach – anxiousness, fear.

Aziraphale looked back up at her. “No, I didn’t. They…they all lived good, long lives. I thought that, well, the Almighty couldn’t have _possibly_ taken issue with, well some _children,_ surviving…”

Crawly barely heard the rest as she let out a breath of relief, unable to do anything else. It was the answer to a question she’d harbored for centuries, something that had plagued her sleep. What had happened to the children after, if her efforts had been in vain, if They had taken even this small thing from her. To hear that they survived, had probably had children who had children, that chances were good Crawly had _met_ some of their descendants already…

It was a…good feeling. Yes, _good._

Crawly had harbored a lingering resentment toward Aziraphale since the Flood. It was silly – petty, even. He didn’t make it happen, and, in hindsight, it was obvious he hadn’t _wanted_ it to, either. But he was an angel, and Crawly had directed her anger at Them toward the closest Heavenly recipient. In all honesty, Aziraphale had just been caught in the crossfire of a very, very old, one-sided argument.

The last of that resentment withered away. It wasn’t just the deed of “overlooking” the kids that did it, not that it wasn’t significant. No, it was also that _he had told her._ That he had kept track of the kids in Crawly’s stead and chose to reveal that information to her because he could tell it mattered to her. Once again, Crawly realized that this angel was different. He wasn’t like the others, he wasn’t what an angel was supposed to be, according to Hell, according to Heaven. He was…a bit like Crawly.

With a sigh, Crawly knew, even then, that this angel was going to be a danger to her. He made her want to ask her questions aloud. Not now. She couldn’t. But she suspected the day would come, eventually, and that she would be utterly helpless to it.

“I…I guess I’d best get going, then,” Aziraphale said suddenly, hands fluttering. “Being as you’re awake and – and I’m sure you’ve got your own business, and I’ve obviously got mine.”

“Right. Wiles of all sorts.”

“Yes. Wiles. Thwarting.”

“’Course.”

After an awkward pause, Aziraphale took up his bag and hoisted it on his shoulder. “Well. Farewell, Crawly.”

“Bye, angel.”

Alone in the darkness, when the angel’s footsteps had disappeared into the distance, Crawly couldn’t stop thinking. About the angel, about humans, about God. It had been so long, and they were both different. They were changed by what they’d seen over the past thousand years. But there was still something there that Crawly recognized from the very first meeting. A spark of something indescribable that made Crawly wish he hadn’t walked away so soon.

“Ineffable!” she said aloud. That was the word, the hard-to-put-to-words thing! Right.

Crawly sighed. She knew Hell would be displeased if they found out that she met up semi-regularly with an angel and hadn’t tried to attack him even once. The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. Really, Heaven and Hell were too present in _everything,_ and that wasn’t something to simply ignore. Even talking to each other, sharing truths together, helping each other in these small ways, was so much more than what they should have done, were they a bit more like what their superiors wanted them to be. It was increasingly apparent that _enemy_ was no longer the right word. Had it ever been?

How long could Crawly play the long game, and who exactly was she playing it with?

What they were doing was not just an oddity, these strange little interactions scattered across centuries. Not just something entertaining, enlightening, fascinating. For the first time, Crawly internalized that her interactions with Aziraphale were _dangerous_. Not because of Aziraphale himself, but because of those Above and Below alike. What would Lucifer think, after he’d assigned her up here? The more that Crawly trusted, the more she revealed, the more she let him trust her in return, the farther they crossed a line into territories unknown. A demon and an angel were never supposed to be like this. Building a campfire to keep the other warm in the cold. Holding a wing to keep the other dry in the wet.

Crawly didn’t fear Aziraphale, couldn’t even fathom it, but perhaps feared _for_ him as she suddenly wondered what Heaven would think of Aziraphale’s actions this night – watching over a demon, coming as close to an apology as he could for the actions of a God he so truthfully praised.

Nothing…well, good.

The thought of Aziraphale getting hurt caused something painful to twist in Crawly’s gut, a different kind of ache she’d never experienced before.

_You’re an angel. I don’t think you can do the wrong thing._


	4. strange how you know inside me

How humans had gone from barely having wheels to constructing cities carved of fancy stones, Crowley didn’t have a damn clue.

The humans were busy in the two thousand years that had passed. There was the Indus Valley, making agriculture a whole dang thing and building waterways or whatever the heck. A few places started scraping symbols that meant words on rocks, like in Egypt – best not to think too much about Egypt. Crowley was glad it’d worked out for Moses, obviously, but…Heaven, when God promised to hold back on the Floods, They sure got _creative._ Like, were that many plagues _really_ necessary? All in a row?

Art was getting more interesting, though, so that was go – er…

Crowley liked it, anyway.

Everywhere Crowley looked, nowadays, religion was crawling and infesting. It had always been a little present, naturally – how else were the humans going to write down the story that set off this whole Free Will thing, anyway? It was a bastardized version dragged through the mud and dropped in a lake, but hey, at least he was still in it. He didn’t remember anything about ribs, though. And, apparently, this timeline was being added to recently, which…he didn’t know you could just do that, but sure. Yeshua deserved to have his story told – well, a _version_ of it, anyway – so Crowley didn’t complain so much as grumble that Lucifer got the credit for _his_ job, the whole showing-kingdoms-of-the-world bit. As if Satan himself was going to pop up just to chat with some mortal. _Please._

Crowley had seen a truly epic hanging garden in Babylon some centuries back, built by that guy, King Nebo….Neebutch….something the second. Some said it rivaled Eden, but Crowley knew better, of course. Still cool, though. Made him wonder about gardening and if it was all that hard. Might even be fun. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to give it more than a sweeping glance, since he was busy pretending to thwart Aziraphale’s Blessing over three dudes that the King tried to off in a furnace.

And now, the Earth was four thousand years old, and the humans had decided it was time for a new way of measuring the Earth’s cycle and called it year 41 for…reasons? He didn’t particularly care but was fairly sure it was that awful senator’s fault, the one who got stabbed a bunch. Jewels? Um, Seizure? It’d come to him later.

Four thousand years, Crowley thought. Four thousand years for humans to construct and grow and create. And the alcohol was still _shit._

And Rome. Gah, Rome. What a mess.

The politics were just – Satan, what were they doing? Assassinations and horrible acts of cruelty and overbearing governments…Crowley got three commendations within a decade and he hadn’t had a hand in any of them. That said, he’d had a direct assignment tempting Caligula – not that this spectacular arsehat needed any help in that direction, which Crowley suspected might round himself out with an even four.

Nothing in this city needed his help. Sure, sex and such nonsense wasn’t demonic in nature – as with most things, it was how it was used that counted – but the sheer debauchery and immorality running rampant was enough to make a demon shed tears of joy. It was a true playground of wiles for the keen and loyal servant of sin. It reminded Crowley of Sodom and Gomorrah, when God rained down burning sulfur, saving only Lot and a few others, including his daughters, who, um…yikes. Yikes. Gah. Those memories aside, he couldn’t help but wonder about the fate of this particular empire.

Still, Crowley merely grunted at the general scene. Humans got on fine without him, as always, so he had no intention of getting involved beyond what was necessary for work. Some demons, when tempting to lust, liked to fuck humans themselves, but Crowley quickly found that he preferred to let the humans do each other, instead. Much more pleasant that way, no thank you. Most definitely not his thing.

The one good thing about Rome was that he’d discovered some artisans working with stained glass and convinced them to fashion some small pieces of black glass to wires to hide his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was more conspicuous or less, but at least no one had accused him of being a god yet, which was something he liked to use only in specific and very personally fulfilling circumstances for some soul-cleansing blasphemy. It had its place, but sometimes he just wanted to walk down the street without being accosted.

Togas and sandals did a poor job of hiding the scales running up his ankles and dotting his arms, but he made do by bandaging his feet and using a walking stick, which he already needed, anyway. The arms, well…hopefully, people would assume they were freckles or pockmarks.

He wasn’t using a walking stick today, though, as he slumped into a stool at some dingy tavern and ordered whatever the barmaid deemed drinkable. After a long week full of bullshitting work and bullshitting paperwork, he was in a funk and had no desire to drag himself out of it. Naturally, Aziraphale appeared at that very moment. Crowley couldn’t even find it in him to be annoyed, ultimately; he could use the distraction, and he was never upset to see them, anyway.

Which was how Crowley found himself eating dinner with an angel in the middle of Rome, a scene he _never_ saw coming.

Ineffable, indeed.

Aziraphale seemed particularly social that day, approaching him in the tavern and inviting him out for lunch, chatting all the while and dragging Crowley through conversation with a bullheadedness that Crowley recognized by now. He knew them well enough to understand why Aziraphale was like this sometimes, as trips to Heaven and visits from their superiors always left them with a particular need for company. For comfort, for familiarity, even for – for camaraderie, he supposed. Not that they were comrades, of course. Crowley wondered if they were even aware of it, how the angel sought him out almost desperately, but Crowley was aware of _everything_ when it came to Aziraphale.

Which, yes, did concern him a little, the sheer fact that he _liked_ this angel enough to pay such close attention to their moods and habits. Considered them something like an acquaintance, or a – a, oh, he didn’t know. Still, he had a lot of practice, after over four millennia, of pushing the worry aside and pretending he’d consider it later, and that’s what he did then.

“So, Crowley, is th–” Aziraphale paused as a child came by with their tray of oysters. Aziraphale patted the child’s head fondly and secretly Blessed them and, judging by the ethereal prickliness that stood Crowley’s arm hair on end, the whole staff of women and slaves. Turning back to Crowley, they continued a bit sheepishly, “Er, sorry. Anyway, I did wonder, since you told me, then…why the name change?”

Crowley had told them about it at the crucifixion of Yeshua, not even a decade back. Come to think of it, it was rare they saw each other so close after a prior encounter. Typically, at least a handful of decades passed by. With a shrug, Crowley replied, “Ah, well, just fits better, really. I didn’t _choose_ ‘Crawly,’ you know.”

Aziraphale looked surprised. “Really?”

“I mean, ‘s not like you chose yours, either.”

“Yes, but mine was bestowed upon me by God, and you, well…”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, lost that one when I became a demon. Then Lucifer was going around, trying to figure out who everyone was, since we were all so covered in soot and grime and had different hair or skin and such. Most of us were unrecognizable and had lost a bunch of our memories. He tried getting us to do nametags, but some of us were still on fire…” He coughed and changed course at Aziraphale’s stricken expression. Memories of those early days batted for his attention, and he deftly set them aside. They didn’t hurt so much, after so long, but they still weren’t pleasant to dwell on. “Anyway, he just handed out names for us to use and that was that.”

 _“Well,”_ Aziraphale said. “I’m glad – er, it’s better to have a name that suits you, then.”

Crowley grinned. “You sound so displeased! Criticizing the naming processes of ol’ Lucifer in setting up the realm of the damned, are we?”

“I-I simply–“

“You’d have probably named everyone after characters from stories, I’ll bet. Wha’d’you think, would I make a good Patroclus?” Crowley batted his eyelashes obnoxiously and Aziraphale choked on air.

“Just – just don’t go borrowing your lover’s armor anytime soon,” Aziraphale managed between a barely contained laugh that turned into a coughing fit.

Crowley scoffed. “I’d look damn good in Achaean armor and you know it.”

Aziraphale wiped their mouth as their swigs of alcohol calmed the tickle of their throat. “I’ll be sure to cut a lock of hair for you.”

“Why, I’m simply _honored,_ angel.”

Crowley adored oral storytelling. He’d found himself listening to a lot of it recently, to get his mind off things when it wandered too far in dark directions. There was something so amazing about watching a storyteller, eyes alight, hands in constant motion to frame a mental visual, drawing up the dust of the world into woven tales of battle and adventure, with loving gods and evil gods and trickster gods, heroes and villains and vices and justice. It was one of his favorite things to do, when he had the time – listen to human stories, and the things they could create.

Crowley gave them a lopsided grin and settled back in his seat. “So, oysters.” He gestured at the platter between them, arranged carefully with half-shells filled with goopy, light brown gunk he was apparently supposed to actually put inside of his blessed body. “Do tell.”

“Ah, yes!” Aziraphale clapped their hands together. “I’ve been ever so excited to try these. I really have heard such marvelous things about them.” They carefully lifted a shell between their thumb and forefinger before tipping it back and slipping the lumpy, fleshy insides onto their tongue.

Crowley watched with fascination as Aziraphale hummed pleasantly around the strange meal, expression reverent. They paused, shell held aloft, as they chewed slowly, every grain of flavor sought and savored, before swallowing and offering a satisfied sigh.

Crowley felt his eyebrows ticking up. “Damn.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Won’t you try one? They’re every bit as wonderful as I hoped.”

Helpless to do otherwise, Crowley took an oyster from the plate, not even looking at it as he watched Aziraphale eat another, slipping the slick chunk of plump flesh into his own mouth at the same time as his companion. Since Crowley didn’t eat much, he felt its progression keenly, the awareness of his physical form amplified even more than usual by a literal lump down his throat. It was briny, but creamy, and each bite sprung back as his mouth flooded with buttery juices.

“Well?” Aziraphale watched him anxiously.

Crowley swallowed it, vaguely surprised. “It’s not nearly as disgusting as it looks.”

“But do you like it?”

Crowley scooped up another in answer. Aziraphale beamed like he’d given them a gift, and they continued to slurp their weird salty flesh lumps in relative silence, the chatter of fellow patrons distracting them for a time. Eavesdropping – a very demonic pastime, of course.

Eating oysters with an angel while doing so was, um. An irrelevant detail.

~*{O}*~

The streets of Rome were busier than they should’ve been for the hour, which was a time of lit lamps and children tucked away in their homes so the adults could have their fun. Aziraphale and Crowley hovered for an awkward moment just outside Petronius’ place after they finished their meal and paid, neither quite sure where to go from there.

Though they had seen each other and been in one another’s company many times over the years, it had never been like this. It had never been easy banter, enjoying a meal, with no tragic or upsetting or even work-related event to distract them. If it was up to Crowley, it’d be like this all the time. It seemed so strange that it had come so easily, that they had ended up here. But…what now? Should Crowley offer to walk them home? Would they go hang out somewhere else to keep talking? Or should they part ways now, when their hearts were still light and the night young with opportunity?

Crowley tried to remind himself that the last one was exactly what he should be doing.

“Hey, I got you something,” Crowley said instead.

Aziraphale looked to him, visibly relieved to have a subject of conversation – or possibly for the excuse to continue in one another’s presence. That was a nice thought. They blinked, processing what the demon said. “You – what? Why would you do that?”

“Er, well, you know that fire about a century ago that burned part of that big library?”

Aziraphale drew themself up straighter, offended. “It’s called the Library of Alexandria, Craw – Crowley! I hadn’t even read a fraction of what was stored in the destroyed section. Oh, that _wretched_ man, setting fire to his ships and destroying those wonderful writings! Caesar received his just rewards for such a heinous crime. And all the other things, too, obviously. The – the murdering, and–”

“Caesar!” Crowley exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “That was the guy!”

“Um, what?”

“Nevermind. Anyway, you know that library?”

Aziraphale gave him a blank look.

“Right. Well, I came across something you’ll like–“

“Hold on, now. Just what is it that you’re giving me? This isn’t like the gift in Egypt, is it?”

Crowley made a face. That had been his first – and only – foray into gift-giving, and it, well, hadn’t gone so great. “I mean, that was just a little accident–“

“That you stole an artifact from a tomb?”

“Technically wasn’t _in_ a tomb yet…” Crowley pointed out with a broad shrug.

Aziraphale folded their arms. “Then you stole something _meant_ for a tomb! Nonetheless, my point stands. Did you steal this or not?”

Crowley blinked at them, then looked across the street, then down to his sandals, then up at the sky of stars, half-blotted by nearby lights. “…I frankly don’t see why it matters. It’s some scrolls, just take ‘em.”

There was a long pause as Crowley felt Aziraphale’s eyes burning into the side of his face, right where his snake brand sat, an irreversible mark. “Well, if it’s, er, important documentation, I’d be remiss not to at least look…”

Crowley grinned at them, delighting in Aziraphale’s sheepish expression. “Come on then, I’ll take you to my place to pick ‘em up. I’ve no use for them, anyway.”

Aziraphale nodded, already following. “They’d be better off in the hands of someone who can take care of them properly.”

“Course.”

Crowley was staying at a villa along the outer edges of Rome. Technically, it belonged to and was run by someone else, but he wasn’t there for the foreseeable future, so Crowley was sure the man wouldn’t mind the use and confiscation of all of his assets, including the slave children that now had proper meals and bedtimes that neither Aziraphale nor Hell needed to know about.

Halfway there, the pain that had been building in Crowley’s legs crested, and with a visible cringe, he miracle his walking stick into his hand from where he’d left it in his chambers. Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice as they continued to chat along the way.

“Wait here a sec,” Crowley instructed before walking through the halls up to the bedroom where he’d stashed them. He didn’t feel it was wise to bring an angel into his sleeping quarters. Even if neither of them went in for such bedroom-adjacent activities, there were definite humanlike connotations that would almost certainly make the angel uncomfortable, and that was rather the opposite of the point of a gift.

He snatched up the scrolls quickly, pausing for a moment to reconsider once more the wisdom of this gift, and returned to Aziraphale.

“Here ya go.” Crowley dropped the seven or eight scrolls into Aziraphale’s arms.

“Oh – oh my.” Aziraphale’s voice went soft and velvety as they shifted their hold to study the scrolls. They were in perfect condition, if gracefully aged. Crowley didn’t know what was in them, only that it was writing and Aziraphale had a weird thing with writing.

“However did you acquire these?” Aziraphale asked, voice still muted with awe as they delicately sifted through them.

Crowley shrugged. “Came across someone selling them and I just…” On second thought, was that too transparent? Eh, whatever. “I figured you’d like them. I know you really liked that library.”

Aziraphale looked up at him. “Thank you, Crowley.”

“Don’t thank me,” Crowley replied instantly, automatically. “I did steal them, actually, just so you’re aware. That’s stolen goods, there. Probably ruined that woman’s entire livelihood.”

Aziraphale nodded slightly, an acknowledgment of something that had somehow passed unsaid without Crowley meaning it to. “Then how good of an angel to come by and confiscate the stolen articles and thwart the undoubtedly evil schemes you had planned for them.”

They were laying it on thick, but Crowley smiled anyway, feeling a strange sense of accomplishment. It felt good to see his gifts well received, for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint. Was definitely very undemonic. So much of him was, lately.

Crowley leaned heavily onto his stick, feeling it strain against the bruising flesh of his palm. He overdid it today, or maybe the pain was just flaring up because it wanted to. It had been two thousand years since Aziraphale learned about Crowley’s chronic pain – as it would later be deemed. As was bound to happen, the angel had seen it again afterward, had perhaps even looked for it. Thousands of years of seeing someone at least once a century would make it hard to keep it a secret. Crowley sometimes got the sense that Aziraphale was studying him to see if he was in pain, too. Crowley didn’t know why, or what they saw, only that Aziraphale had never once mentioned it, not since that very first time in the woods, long after the Ark. Crowley had continued to hide it, not in shame, but because hiding things is what demons do.

Crowley didn’t know what made him say it, then, but he suddenly blurted out, “It’s because of my Fall, you know.”

Aziraphale looked up at him with wide, startled eyes, still gently carrying the scrolls like an infant.

“My, um…” Crowley looked down at his legs, shifting the hips to alter the pressure. “My legs hurt sometimes, and my arms, and back. It’s because of my Fall.”

The angel stood, cast in a subtle silhouette against the handful of fires and lights that illuminated sections of the city streets. Their front and face were cast in shadow, but the wrinkles on their forehead made the emotions clear, anyway. “You…you still hurt from…”

“Being tossed out of Heaven like a sack of potato eyes, yeah.”

“Well, well that’s…” Aziraphale stared at him, some extremely strong emotion in his eyes. Sympathy, maybe? “Thank you for telling me,” he eventually replied.

This gentle, careful reaction annoyed him in humans. Like they suddenly saw him as weak, deserving as pity. Like it changed anything about him, just because he had this.

But from angel, to a demon?

It was…it was good. It felt good. Crowley wasn’t supposed to like feeling good.

Yet, he couldn’t help but smile, a small and fragile thing. He inhaled and released a deep breath. It felt wrong, for a demon to ever be vulnerable. He had never even told a fellow demon about this. He’d never wanted to make a big deal of it, never even intended to tell them…Aziraphale was supposed to be his enemy, and this was information they could use against him, or even feed to Heaven. But, against all matter of reason and universal order, Crowley trusted Aziraphale. He had trusted them from the start, not to simply smite him on the wall. Trusted them to protect him from the rain – an unexpected gesture of kindness that Crowley could not forget. Crowley trusted them, despite everything in his nature and the laws of the cosmos that said he shouldn’t.

Maybe this was a mistake, but for the first time in so unspeakable long, Crowley felt something akin to _faith_ in another being, and he simply let himself do so. Crowley had been on Earth for four thousand years. He had known Aziraphale for as long, and had known this pain for longer, the two rarely coexisting. He thought it was perhaps a bit silly, but it felt significant to him.

“I-I ought to head to my lodgings,” Aziraphale said after a pause. “To look over these scrolls, and all. Wouldn’t be good to stay out too late in these parts, anyhow.”

“Good point,” Crowley said, inexplicably disappointed to see them go, and simultaneously relieved to move past the soft moment he didn’t know what to do with. He couldn’t resist a tease and added with a wink, “You’d be invited to an orgy in seconds, looking like that.”

“C-Crowley!”

Crowley laughed so hard, he had to wipe away a tear. “Get yourself out of here, angel. I’ll see you around.”

Aziraphale sniffed primly, cheeks bright red. “Perhaps.” They turned and walked away, leaving Crowley to watch them go, smiling softly to no one.

He…he maybe liked this angel a lot. Like, a whole ton of a lot.

And this angel…this angel maybe felt a whole ton of a lot of something, too.

Crowley added it to the closet of Things to Think About Later. It was getting cluttered in there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the fluff/banter in this chapter will sustain you through what is to come. *ominous music plays*  
> Also, um, I've also never eaten an oyster. It felt very weird to have to google what eating an oyster is like.


	5. somehow elusive

Aziraphale popped up in Crowley’s life more often in the centuries following Rome, and Crowley got into the habit of scanning crowds for heads of fluffy white curls everywhere he went. More often than not, there was no angel to be found, and Crowley felt a surge of disappointment he poorly ignored. When Crowley did see them, it took all his restraint to walk up casually instead of bursting into a mad sprint.

Whether it was pure coincidence, the growing connections of the world, or divine intervention, Crowley couldn’t be sure why Aziraphale seemed to be anywhere Crowley was. He had a sneaking suspicion, but he hadn’t yet decided if he wanted to mention it to Aziraphale or not. Regardless, he was grateful for it. It was nice to have a familiar face to see, a constant in a world where faces never lasted long enough.

It was so easy to get attached, and so hard to say goodbye.

Aziraphale was the only thing in the world that didn’t feel temporary, where each “goodbye” was sure to be followed by a silent “see you again.” Crowley came to rely on the angel’s presence, no longer surprised when he was there, and more so when he was not.

Sometime in the 500s in Arthurian England, they met up again. Aziraphale was serving under King Arthur at the Round Table. Crowley was acting as the Black Knight and spreading foment, as he was wont to do. The damp didn’t do anything good for Crowley’s joints, which complained loudly about the entire situation – though not nearly so loud as Crowley’s mouth did. Being a demon meant having no particular restraint when it came to withholding complaints. He was just doing his duty, really.

As soon as he’d woken up that day, Crowley could feel that it was going to be, while not a horrible pain day, not a particularly good one, either. He elected to spend the day in his tent, telling the knights who worked for him to take the day off and leave him alone. Normally, he’d tough it out, but he just wasn’t up for it that particular morning.

Curled up in his blankets, which _also_ felt damp, Crowley lay thinking about building a fire or miracling the water in his canteen hot to serve as some sort of hot pad for his hips. The sudden clearing of a throat outside his tent door distracted him.

Because his knights were a bit rowdy and uncouth, they didn’t usually request entry in such a polite way, but Crowley didn’t think much of it. Maybe they were finally learning manners or something absurd like that. “Who is it and what do you want?” he groused.

No one said _he_ was learning manners.

“Erm, should I, ah, come back later?”

“Quiet, prisoner,” ordered Collin, one of the boys, seemingly making his voice deeper to sound older than his fourteen or fifteen years. To Crowley, he added, “Sir, we have apprehended this man attempting to infiltrate our base.”

Crowley shot up at the first voice, prim and lilting, before immediately stifling a cry at the horrible, hot stab of pain that spiked in his belly from the movement. After a couple of centering breaths, he leaned back down and said as evenly as he could, “Let him in, Collin. I know him, he’sss alright.”

The flap of furs moved aside, and there he was, decked out in silver armor, an imposing presence beside the relatively short boy, who clutched Aziraphale’s confiscated sword and eyed the silver man suspiciously. Aziraphale stepped inside as Collin hovered at the entry, shooting glances between his leader and his leader’s apparent visitor.

“Are…you sure about him, sir?” Collin asked, gesturing with the hilt.

“Don’t worry about it,” Crowley reassured him, waving his hand. “Oh, leave his sword. You can go.”

When Collin was gone, Aziraphale pulled his helmet off. His hair had grown out a bit more than usual, but was squished from the helmet, giving it a very strange shape. Aziraphale smiled at him. “Your posse is very sweet,” he commented.

Crowley shrugged. “They’re all brats. Just scooped ‘em off the street, really.”

“Runaway slaves, women escaped from bad home situations, men who don’t fancy women, orphans. And that boy – Collin, you said? – seemed to really look up to you.”

Crowley glared at him. “Cheapest labor I could find. Humans without homes are the most useful for evil deeds.”

“My mistake. How very diabolical.”

“Obviously. What’re you here for, then?”

“I heard tell of the Black Knight in these parts and was sent to duel him. I’ve suspected your hand for some time. So, I got separated from my group _most_ accidentally and found your camp, where Collin kindly escorted me to his leader.”

Crowley lifted an eyebrow at the “accidentally” and higher still at the “kindly” but didn’t call him out on either. “Well, here I am, perfectly ready for a duel. Prepare to be bested, angel.”

Aziraphale poorly hid a small smile. “Oh, no need for such nonsense.” He subtly gave Crowley’s body a once-over as though he might be able to see how he was doing if he looked hard enough. It was something he’d been doing for thousands of years, but more obviously since the conversation in Rome.

Crowley had always known Aziraphale was kind, but the past handful of centuries had made him reevaluate just how kind he really was. Aziraphale had been made a guardian from the beginning, guarding the humans back in Eden. It was a natural instinct for Aziraphale to want to protect.

There was no protecting Crowley from the fact that he Fell, and that his demonic essence would never let him forget for a moment, but he sometimes felt like that’s exactly what Aziraphale wanted to do.

The way Aziraphale showed his kindness was always simple, such as taking Crowley’s arm per the social mores of the era, serving as something for Crowley to lean on should he need it. Insisting they stop to watch the sunset in case Crowley needed to rest. Inviting him to sit places more often than to walk through them. Everything the angel did or said had the guise of plausible deniability, and he never tried to do anything without asking first – even if not necessarily with words so much as looks. It seemed important to him, and Crowley valued it, to be asked how he felt about things rather than having assumptions made.

And the thing was that anyone who had chronic pain deserved to be treated that way. There was nothing spectacular or amazing about Aziraphale’s actions because that was how anyone should treat anyone. Crowley believed thoroughly that it wasn’t extraordinary that Aziraphale did these things, in the sense that patting the able-bodied on the back for treating a person with a disability – or something like one, in Crowley’s case – like a, well, _person,_ is always the expectation. What was extraordinary, however, was that these were actions taken by an _angel_ for the sake of a _demon’s_ happiness.

Crowley, be it for his pain or for being a demon or for not being good at being a demon, had never had anyone _care._

“’Fraid I’m not up for much dueling at the mo,’” Crowley replied. “’S not horrible, but I’d rather not risk it.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “You just know I’d win.”

“Well that’s just–“

“True?”

Crowley did something anyone else might call a pout, but he would staunchly defend as a scowl. “Oh, shut up. Tell me what you’ve been up to lately.”

Aziraphale stripped the rest of his armor off as he filled Crowley in on the goings-on at court. Rumors of affairs and holy treasures and such. Aziraphale was apparently working to counteract basically everything that Crowley had been assigned to do, as usual, though neither of them had anything to do with Guinevere’s courtly romance with Lancelot.

When Aziraphale was down to his regular clothing, he sat beside Crowley’s little nest. The air seemed to warm as soon as the angel settled in…by miracle or Crowley’s perception, he couldn’t be sure.

“I have to do a temptation in one of the Pyu city states,” Crowley groaned. “All the way across the damn continent! You’d think _they_ think Earth is the easiest thing in the world to travel across by how often they randomly assign me to different continents back-to-back. And riding horses is the _worst.”_

“Indeed,” Aziraphale agreed. “I sometimes am able to fly betwixt locales, but then I accidentally stumble across another human civilization I didn’t know was there and have to go cast a handful of memory miracles!”

“Same here. If I can get away with it, I will, but they’re all over the place. One day, I bet we won’t even be able to take our wings out at all.”

“Goodness, I _hope_ not.”

There was a lull. It was a relaxed silence, broken only by soft, unnecessary, but habitual breathing. The thought that Crowley’d had bouncing around in his head for some time was making itself known. Crowley couldn’t be sure what Aziraphale would think of it, but, with a sigh, he abandoned caution and allowed his impulse control to decide for him.

“I was thinking, recently,” Crowley said slowly.

“Oh, were you now? How rare.”

“I can and will kick you out of this tent.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I won’t,” Crowley conceded. “Anyway, as I was saying before your very rude interruption – quite unangellike, I might add – I’ve, well, noticed recently that we run into each other a lot. Especially in the last few centuries.”

“Well, yes, we have.” He took on a peculiar expression. “Does that…bother you?”

“Nah. I only thought that…” Crowley glanced down, then up. He couldn’t sense anyone watching them. “It kinda makes it seem like our Head Offices are assigning us to similar locations.”

“…And?”

“And that makes me wonder if they’re…communicating.”

“Communicating?” Aziraphale blinked rapidly. “I don’t – you can’t be saying…”

“I think Heaven and Hell have some sort of…communication between them that we don’t know about,” Crowley stated to save him the trouble.

Aziraphale stared at him for a long moment, visibly scrambling to evaluate the idea from every angle and find a way to refute it. He was an angel, and a loyal one – he wouldn’t accept such a thing at face value, of course. “You – perhaps they both simply know where the, er, hotspots are that require the most influence at a given time.”

“Angel, we met up in a farming village in Nippon in the 4th century to make a teenager steal something and a thief ‘change his ways.’ The population was all of three hundred people, tops. There is no way that was a hotspot of any sort.”

“But I don’t understand. Why would they be doing that? They – _we’re_ on opposite sides!”

Crowley hesitated before he spoke. “It’s how governments – bureaucracies – work, angel. Look around you. The humans – they fight these wars, murdering and fighting people for glory, for their country, for their _side._ But all the while, you know the politicians and leaders of the countries are talking to each other, figuring out how to get what they want out of it.”

Aziraphale wrung his hands, eyebrows furrowed. “But that – that’s _humans,_ Crowley. Original Sin, Free Will – Angels of the Lord would _never_ stoop so low.”

Crowley gazed at him very pointedly. “Stoop so low as to consort with one of the Fallen?”

Aziraphale looked very uncomfortable.

Crowley sighed. “Look, that’s not the point I’m making. I just thought that, if it’s even possible that Heaven and Hell might be collaborating, sending us to the same places to make us fight their battles…what if we did the same?”

“W-What?”

“What if we collaborated? On our assignments. You wouldn’t have to thwart my wiles if I wasn’t wiling, after all. Be easier if we both stayed home. Or just met up without any of this…all this _stuff,_ where we have to tow the party line and pretend that we’re enemies. Send messages back to our Head Offices saying we’d done what they asked, and they’d never have to know.”

“You – you want me to lie to Heaven? I could never–“

Crowley, who’d learned a few thousand years after the fact that Aziraphale had lied to _God’s face_ about the flaming sword, didn’t back down. “End result would be the same. All we’d need to do is lie _well.”_

Aziraphale stood quickly. “Crowley, you absolutely cannot–“

“You _know_ it’s true.”

Aziraphale looked hurt, and confused, which was nowhere near what Crowley was aiming for. “You can’t say that,” he whispered. “Don’t do this. Not now.”

“I’m jusssst trying to sssay–“

“Don’t.” The angel drew in a deep breath as his expression steeled, mouth set in a firm line. “Whatever we have, however we may talk sometimes, we _cannot_ be friends. We cannot be anything _like_ friends! The mere notion is absurd!”

Crowley gaped at him.

_Friends._

Demons didn’t have “friends.” Crowley hadn’t even said anything about them being friends. He hadn’t even thought of the word himself.

The angel apparently had.

“…Why isss it absssurd?” Crowley pleaded.

“Because…” Aziraphale glanced up nervously, unable to make eye contact. “I would never sully myself with a demon. We’re not having this conversation. Not another word.”

Crowley drew in a startled breath.

He was an _idiot._

Crowley was one of the Fallen. A demon, the scum of the cosmos in the eyes of angels. The very farthest one could Fall, in every sense of the word.

In other words, _an angel had so much more to lose._

He forgot. Crowley had gotten complacent, and he’d forgotten. He’d forgotten that their _friendship_ was dangerous. He’d never meant to get so close, to open himself so far, to make himself so vulnerable and dependent on Aziraphale’s existence in his life. He got too relaxed, and he let Aziraphale in, and now it was way too late because Aziraphale mattered to Crowley too much to ever risk his safety.

They were friends. What Aziraphale said proved as much – the angel did have a tendency to speak between his own lines, and what he denied was as important as what he didn’t. But they couldn’t truly be real friends, not like it was in stories – declaring and sharing kind words, displaying affection openly for the world to see. They could never let anyone see. Everything that existed between them was wrong in the eyes of those with all the power to make them hurt.

Crowley swallowed painfully. “…You should probably go,” he said, slightly hoarse.

“…I should.”

Aziraphale redressed quickly in his armor and left, sword in hand.

Crowley flopped back into his bed, groaning. “Idiot,” he mumbled to himself.

Crowley cared about Aziraphale in a way that he couldn’t describe, only that it was a lot, and all evidence supported the theory that Aziraphale felt similarly. And that was brilliant, but also terrifying. No matter how much either of them wanted to be what they secretly were, they couldn’t do anything about it. They couldn’t have more than these conversations, these sideways glances and shared laughter. It would always be a stagnant, ya know, _this,_ trapped and locked away deep in their chests.

 _Friends._

So, six more centuries passed. They met multiple times throughout, as before, but each interaction was terse, overly formal. Distant. A warmth had dissipated, leaving the world colder than it had felt in a very long time. Crowley didn’t know what to do. Crowley Fell because he asked questions, but also because he hung around the wrong people. The type of people who encouraged those questions, in the beginning, who fostered curiosity and doubt. Like himself.

He valued Aziraphale, and he yearned for his friendship in a way he’d rarely wanted for anything. But…if his presence meant Aziraphale was in danger?

There were some risks not even a demon could take.


	6. this journey’s hurting

_Well,_ Crowley thought as they watched their blood steadily leak over the dusty path, _this is suboptimal._

As far as days went, Crowley had been having a pretty decent one. They woken up from a four-day nap, which left them mentally rested and alert. Though they’d taken to residing in a castle they’d commandeered for kicks, Crowley decided to go out walking through the surrounding city to work some minor temptations, dressed in the Gaelic style of a black leine – the length of which was not long enough for a woman, nor short enough for a man, because why not? – over black braies, with black woolen hose down to their black leather shoes. Though not one to advocate for modesty, Crowley appreciated the excuse to cover the snake aspects of their form that were sometimes difficult to hide.

They leaned comfortably on a fancy walking stick they’d commissioned a decade back which, obviously, depicted a serpent twining around it, with the head on the top. It was intricate work and made them feel very upper class, suiting their image as a nondescript noble in the Kingdom of Alba, serving King David I in the 1100s. Monarchs never needed much help, but they figured it couldn’t hurt to dip their toes in. Mostly, Crowley was just hanging around to see how this whole conquering thing was going to play out. Currently just seemed to involve a lot of forcing French culture and feudalism on the locals.

It was sunny, early autumn with a comfortable breeze. Outdoor markets were busy with activity and the excitement of the harvest. Crowley meandered without destination, stopping for work now and again, just allowing themself to watch and enjoy all the happy kids running about, faces shining. Selling or buying wares, the people gave off an aura of calm that only came at the end of a long war – and even on the losing side, there was comfort in it simply being over and finding joy in the simple, domestic things.

For the first time in ages, Crowley felt…peaceful.

Which, of course, was why they failed to notice they were being targeted.

Without warning, in the middle of the thickest of the crowd, a man ran up and kicked Crowley’s stick out from under their hand, causing them to collapse forward. Another immediately went for their coin purse, but Crowley wasn’t having it and they kicked at him, using a miracle to make sure it really bruised. The man fell to the ground, groaning, and Crowley prepared to use another miracle when their leg seized up – the one they’d kicked with – and, in that brief moment of distraction as the familiar fire crept up through their legs and back, another man came and clocked Crowley on the skull.

Crowley grimaced, their face shoved into the dirt and tasting sediment as they fought for air. They were unable to focus as licks of pain engulfed their body. The concussion made their thoughts feel hazy and they couldn’t pinpoint anything that hurt, only a vague, clenching pain, worse than any cramp. They peeled their eyes open through the sandy grit that clung to their eyelids, preparing to fight or pause time or _something_ , just in time to watch another man – perhaps the one who hit them, or the one they hit, it wasn’t clear – stab them in the gut.

The thieves withdrew the knife, then took both their coin purse and their walking stick, which was just a dick move.

Crowley was left gasping, people rushing around to try and help them as other humans chased after the thieves. There was a lot of distrust for nobility since the war, especially anyone associated with King David I, but Crowley hadn’t expected to be attacked in broad daylight. With one last bit of concentration, even though it made the throbbing of their head worse, Crowley tossed some curses in the direction of their assailants, ensuring a lifetime of inconveniences like Hell had never seen. Had Crowley been a bit more lucid, they would have come up with something more nefarious, but – holy Heaven, being stabbed _hurt._

They’d figured, before, that they knew what to expect of discorporation. They’d been in pain their whole life; it was hardly an abstract concept. But this was different, and they realized as they shakily lifted a hand slick with red from their staining clothes that they’d clearly had no clue what it felt like, to die.

Oh. They were _dying._

Just as Crowley realized they should heal the wound with a miracle before it got any worse, they lost consciousness.

Awareness returned to them in an instant. One moment, they blinked in the Kingdom of Alba, and the next, they couldn’t blink because they were a snake, automatically reverting to their old corporation when the human one was out of commission. They hadn’t used it much since Eden, typically preferring to present as human most of the time. Pretty hard to appreciate culture and such when the humans kept trying to cut their body in half with a hoe.

Crowley shifted where they were coiled up in an uncomfortably warm, dingy office. A sign on the wall read “Why stop at discorporation?”

Crowley was back in Hell.

Over the past five millennia, they’d popped in for a visit on a number of occasions. Though they received most assignments and commendations through the usual network, they were occasionally required to come Down for cringey ceremonies following a particularly well-done temptation, to present plans for some diabolical machinations of theirs, or if Beelzebub wanted to inconvenience them. But they’d never been Down long, no more than a day or two at the absolute most.

They knew, of course, that discorporation was always a possibility, and they were secretly impressed with themself for managing so long with the one body. Other demons lost theirs much quicker. The problem was that it didn’t matter, because discorporated demons were rarely reassigned to Earth, from what they’d seen and heard. Those that were often waited hundreds if not thousands of years for their new body to be made.

Bless.

_Blessed shit._

Crowley was not waiting that long to get back topside. Absolutely not. The humans were up to so much, they always were, and Crowley wanted to see it – and Aziraphale! What if they never saw Aziraphale again? They couldn’t stand that.

Crowley tried not to look too startled when the door opened – which was already on loose hinges and squealed as it swung – and a demon entered. He was one of the board members for the Discorporation Committee, Mictlan, unnecessarily tall in his human form, almost certainly so he could look down his stubby nose at people. Not all demons wore human corporations in Hell – some still stuck with their animalesque aspects – but Mictlan was one who took business trips to Earth often enough that it just made sense to use one.

Mictlan sat down gracefully, the loose garments failing to hide how he was practically just skin wrapped around bones. He folded his hands in front of him on the desk, knuckles and knobby wrists protruding. “So. Crawly. I see you’ve gotten yourself discorporated,” he drawled in a deep, rumbling tone.

“It’s Crowley,” they corrected automatically, drawing themself up from their coil, showing just a little fang. Crowley had been expecting this sort of reception. Sure, they’d never gotten discorporated until now, but most demons on Earth had at least once. They knew for a fact that Mictlan had twice, himself. But everyone in this literal Hellhole was a hypocrite and would never waste an opportunity to step on others, regardless.

“Hmm.” He leaned his elbows on the table and Crowley vaguely wondered if his arms were going to crack from that minute pressure. “I see in your file that this is your first time getting discorporated, Cr _ow_ ley,” he pointed out, drawing out the alteration in Crowley’s name as though he disapproved of it. “But you must surely have _some_ idea of how this goes. You’ve wasted Hell’s assets with your recklessness, and we don’t look kindly on such things.” He smirked a little. “Not that we look _kindly_ on anything, of course.”

Crowley hissed at him. “I’ve done more work off that one corporation than most of the rest of Hell, combined. No one else has even _been_ on Earth as long as me. You wouldn’t want to waste me in the Pits.”

Though they’d never tell anyone this, Crowley knew that at least part of the reason they hadn’t been discorporated was that they were far more aware of their body than most. That was the thing about constant pain – they recognized and catalogued every little reaction and twinge of their body. Crowley knew their human body to a point of absurdity, after thousands of years of paying close attention to it. It told them when to push, when to pull back. When to risk and when to play it safe. Where others may have discorporated themselves in all sorts of manners, from illness to battle, Crowley had learned how to avoid all it of just via the heightened awareness they had of their own body.

Mictlan frowned, emphasizing the sunken cheeks. Despite being so close to human-like, or perhaps because of it, he was very disturbing. He would’ve made a great Halloween decoration in a millennium. “Oh, Cr _ow_ ley, I don’t think that’s for _you_ to decide, is it?”

Crowley shifted uncomfortably and tried to play it off as intimidation. “Maybe not,” they countered, “but it’s hardly all up to _you,_ either.” It was a Committee for a reason, after all.

Mictlan sighed. A long, corporate sigh. An oh-what-are-we-to-do-with-you sort of sigh that made Crowley’s blood boil. “Unfortunately,” he agreed, “that is the case. We need you topside in about ten years; we’re hiring on Pestilence in a couple centuries and we have some work for you to do before she gets started. So,” he said, waving his hand at Crowley like a fly, “shoo.”

A touch indignant at this undignified dismissal, but not quite stupid enough to be upset about it, Crowley immediately took their leave. The door didn’t have a handle, but it also didn’t have a closing mechanism, so they slithered out uninhibited.

They made their way through the narrow, humid hallways for Dantalion’s office, the Department for Physical Forms, which was the last bit of Hell that they’d visited. They were not keen to see her again, but needs be.

“Yo, Dantalion,” Crowley said as they entered without knocking. They couldn’t physically knock with a tail for a body, but Crowley wouldn’t have even if they could. “How’s life?”

Dantalion didn’t even lift her head. She was wearing a mask that appeared to depict a man stabbed through both eyes, red paint splattered across the remainder of the pale, ceramic face. Strangely fitting. “It’s Hell,” she replied simply as she finished scribbling whatever notes she was writing. Finally, she put down her pen and faced Crowley. “I wondered how long it’d be before you’d drag your ugly stench in here again.”

Crowley shrugged insomuch as a snake could shrug. “Discorporated. You know how it is.”

“Mmm hmm,” she said tiredly, reaching a hand under her mask to rub at her eyes. She’d cut her awful, yellow fingernails, apparently. It was the first attempt at hygiene that Crowley had seen in Hell for millennia. “You assigned back to Earth, again?” she asked.

“Yup.”

She sighed. “I need to send Notus to collect more magnesium and chlorine, we’re nearly out of stock,” she muttered to herself. “Right. Do you have a warranty?”

“A what?”

“A warranty. For your human corporation. If your first one is damaged or lost, we guarantee a swift replacement and move you up in the queue.”

Crowley spluttered. “Why the heaven would I have a _warranty?”_

She huffed in annoyance. “If you’d bought one, you complete waste of resources.”

They hissed.

“Oh, right,” Dantalion said with a false air of realization. “We didn’t implement warranties until immediately after you left. My bad. What _unfortunate_ timing.”

Crowley wanted to bite her. They weren’t sure if they were venomous, but they were keen to find out. “I have to return to Earth as soon as possible. Mictlan said I’m needed in a decade,” they said through a clenched jaw. “So, don’t waste my damned time.”

Crowley had the distinct impression that she was smiling at them from under her blood-streaked mask. “Oh, Crowley,” she said in an attempt at a sweet voice, which failed utterly. “What a _shame_ that Mictlan isn’t above me. If I don’t have a body for you, I don’t have a body for you. It’s not mass production, it’s–“

“Craftsmanship,” Crowley muttered at the same time.

“Don’t worry,” she continued in a sickeningly sweet voice, tilting her head, “I promise I’ll do my _very_ best to prioritize Hell’s _favorite_ Earth agent, since you’re just so very _valuable_ to us.”

After leaving Dantalion’s office, Crowley requested permission to return to Earth as a snake for the time being, but this was refused on the grounds that the demon who filtered such requests hated Crowley specifically. This was a very good reason when in Hell.

Instead, they were assigned to desk work until their new body was made.

It took two centuries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mictlantecuhtli (meaning “Lord of Mictlan”) was an Aztec god of death who ruled part of the underworld called Mictlan (I pulled a Hades and just used the name of the place he ruled for simplicity’s sake). He was typically depicted as being six feet tall (1.8 meters) and with the body of a skeleton. Though a god of death, he was also closely associated with life, health, fertility, so on. He has an interesting myth wherein Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl came to the underworld to steal the bones of gods from prior generations, but Mictlantecuhtli tried to stop them, causing Quetzalcoatl to drop the bones and shatter them. When Quetzalcoatl got the bones topside, he used them to make humans, and that’s the origin for why people are different heights.  
> The briefly mentioned Notus is the Greek wind god assigned to the south, here demoted to errand boy. I have no explanation for why I made this decision. Maybe since he’s a wind god (or demon, in this case), he can easily gather different gasses and such for corporation creation. Just go with it.


	7. you’ve seen how I live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans who celebrate! Hope you enjoy the chapter!  
> Also, content warning I forgot to add at the beginning: the end of this chapter has a brief mention of antisemitism in accordance with plague. You can skip this by not reading the last two paragraphs.

Unsurprisingly, Crowley’s time spent in Hell was neither valuable nor fun. Almost all of it was spent filing souls and taxes and doodling a lot of flaming swords in the margins of her paperwork. And daydreaming about sunshine. Alcohol. Grass. Even snow. Possibly snow-white curls, even, but no one could prove it.

Being a snake all the time _sucked._ She was always a little snake-y, even when in human form, but there was a world of difference between some scaled toes and having no limbs. The usual pains followed her, of course, but they were different, and required a whole new approach to its management. There was almost nothing in Hell to help, especially since it was cold and damp – conditions she’d long since understood made it worse. Be that because of Hell itself, she couldn’t know.

Crowley’s new corporation, when it was finally ready, was exactly the same as the previous one, which was a relief to her for both vanity and convenience reasons. She’d been fond of the last one. Appearance didn’t matter much, it was just some old flesh sack, but she had become accustomed to wearing it, and she’d gotten rather attached. She was glad this one was unchanged. She was surprised to find that the brand Lucifer gave her all those thousands of years ago also transferred to this new body. It was clear the mark was on something deeper than the skin. She forgot it was there, most of the time…and she never was sure how she felt about it. Regardless, the second her human body was finished, she put it on and headed topside without a Downward glance.

That first breath of air on Earth, into expanding lungs, the crack of a resisting spine and the stretch of ligaments under soft skin, reminded her strongly of her first time on Earth, in a fresh body, on a fresh world. She had been filled with so much joy and curiosity for everything she saw, and wanted to taste and smell and see all the Earth had to offer. She felt the same this time, desperate to know what had changed. Which turned out to be a ton. What were those giant propeller thingies for? The fuck is a windmill?

She was so glad to be back. Satan, she hated being a snake. She hated Hell. And she loved humans, and the weird things they came up with.

The first thing Crowley did when she got back to Earth was search for Aziraphale, of course. This turned out to be unnecessary, as Aziraphale found _her_ instead after only a couple of weeks. They made eye contact in a busy market, and Crowley’s heart panged painfully, beautifully, and Aziraphale looked close to tears.

She drew closer and Crowley felt a smile overtaking her own expression. Aziraphale was clothed in the style for women of the era, a cream-toned kirtle with brown-trimmed hems and long, wide – of course – angel sleeves. Crowley herself was dressed in a fitted black kirtle with the fabric tight from shoulder to knuckle.

“Crowley,” she breathed, eyes wide.

“Ange–“ Crowley was cut off by Aziraphale suddenly throwing her arms around Crowley’s neck, drawing her into a hug, heedless of the surrounding humans. It had been a long time since they’d even _seen_ each other, let alone were so close, so it took a moment for Crowley to recover from her shock and return the hug in kind. God – Satan, she’d missed her _so much._

“Hi, angel,” Crowley replied into Aziraphale’s soft, feathery curls. “I’m back.”

Aziraphale pulled back just enough to look at her, crying freely. Her touch was light but sure, and so very welcome. “I’ve been so worried, you – you fool!” she exclaimed. “It’s been _two hundred years!_ Where in Hell have you _been?!”_

“Well, er, mostly Demonic Marketing and at my desk, filing souls,” Crowley stammered, running soothing hands up and down Aziraphale’s back, surprising even herself with the bold yet gentle gesture. She’d never seen Aziraphale like this, practically unhinged compared to how put-together she always was. Crowley felt off-kilter by osmosis.

Aziraphale blinked in surprise. “What?”

“Got discorporated.”

“Wha – when?”

“Apparently, just over two hundred years ago. Hey, wha’d’you say we find somewhere with half-decent mead and catch up?”

Aziraphale nodded with wide eyes, tightening her grip for a moment before visibly forcing herself to let go. “Yes, I’m renting a place nearby.” Crowley handed her a black handkerchief and she accepted it silently.

Half an hour later, they were sitting together in Aziraphale’s room with a bottle between them. At Aziraphale’s fretful request, Crowley told her the condensed version of what happened. Getting discorporated while doing temptations, working in Hell as she waited for her new body to be made. It was, despite all the time that had passed, a short story to recount.

Aziraphale listened carefully and was horrified by Crowley’s tale – which, by the way, was definitely not dramatized at all and didn’t involve a skit in which Crowley did an unflattering impression of Dantalion and Aziraphale definitely did not spit out her drink in a fit of shocked laughter. This laughter definitely didn’t make Crowley feel instantly recovered from her time in Hell at all. Nope.

“So,” Crowley said breathlessly, sitting on the bed and leaning against some propped-up pillows, empty tankard abandoned on the floor halfway through her reenactment, “after that, I wanted to see what was up in England. They dropped me down where I discorporated in – well, Alba, but it’s just the Kingdom of Scotland now. I heard that” – _you were in England last time we talked so I came here to look for you_ – “England got a new king a couple years back and married someone from France. Got curious and figured I’d take a look.”

“Ah, yes, King Edward II and Queen Isabella of France. Isabella is a very intelligent young woman. I do believe she is going to have much influence in the coming years,” Aziraphale replied thoughtfully. There was something sad in her eyes as she added, “Regardless, discorporation is a nasty business and the queues are so slow. It’s good that…well, now that you’re back, I won’t have to wonder anymore as to your, ah, wellbeing, so…thoroughly.”

There were a number of stories behind those downcast eyes, and the meanest part of Crowley was glad to see it – proof that she had been missed in return. She’d often wondered in Hell if Aziraphale even noticed she was gone. They used to go centuries without seeing each other, but that was before they’d become _friends,_ as Aziraphale wouldn’t say. A small smile crept across Crowley’s lips, before immediately falling off as she processed the angel’s comments. “Wait…angel, have you been discorporated?”

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale admitted sheepishly. “Not all of us can last five thousand years on one corporation, you know.”

“But I–“ Crowley sat forward stiffly, eyebrows shot up. “How did I not know about this? How did you – when? What happened? How many times?”

Aziraphale seemed surprised by Crowley’s barrage of questions and blinked at her owlishly. “Erm, three times,” she answered after a moment. “I haven’t in, oh, at least two thousand years now.”

“How did you, well, discorporate, then? Weren’t able to miracle out in time?”

“Ah, um.” Aziraphale took a long sip of her alcohol. “It’s – it’s not important. So, what are going to do now that you’re back on Earth?”

Crowley ignored this blatant attempt to distract her. “What do you mean it’s not important? You’ve died three times and I didn’t even know about it!”

“Well, _really,”_ Aziraphale huffed. “We’re hardly attached at the hip, Crowley. We don’t tell each other every little thing. We’re enemies, after all. Besides, it’s _discorporation_ , not dying. Those are very different things.”

“Still…” Crowley leaned back, folding her arms. “’S just, I could’ve, I dunno. Whatever.”

There was an awkward silence. Crowley stared at her legs, spread-eagle over the bed, black fabric twisted around the knees, hose wrinkled at the ankles. A few of her scales showed where they crawled up her calves.

Aziraphale sighed in defeat. “I was reprimanded.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow at this apparent change of subject, looking back up at the angel. “Oh?”

“I was told, in around…oh, only a few centuries after Eden, really,” Aziraphale continued, looking up wistfully, “that I was performing too many miracles that the Department of Angelic Resources for Earthly Improvement–“

“Pompous name–“

“Deemed frivolous,” Aziraphale finished.

“Frivolous?”

“Yes. So, I was ordered to use fewer miracles outside of official mandates.”

“Wait, hold up. So…you were told _not_ to do miracles? Even if they were to protect your body? What would happen if you did them, anyway?”

Aziraphale’s looked at her hands. “Really, no use thinking about that. Anyway, since I couldn’t perform too many miracles, I ended up getting into a spot of trouble with a wolf…anyway, it’s in the past.”

Crowley took note of Aziraphale’s evasive answer but chose not to probe at it – now, anyway. “And…and the other two times?”

“Same sort of situation. Reprimands. Once while working as a medic in a war zone, and the other from a volcanic eruption.”

Crowley winced. “Satan, that’s awful, angel.”

Aziraphale shrugged. “It happens.”

Shaking her head, Crowley replied, “No, it doesn’t. You could’ve gotten out of any of those if you’d been able to do miracles! But those feathery bastards upstairs – they preferred you getting discorporated over performing a miracle? Seriously?!”

Aziraphale kept looking at her hands, fingers twining and twisting. “Well, they weren’t pleased about the discorporation, either.”

“Pieces of angelic shit,” Crowley spat.

“Don’t say such things.”

“I’ll say what I wa–“

“Crowley, please.” Aziraphale looked at her with those big eyes.

Crowley deflated a bit, letting out an exasperated breath. “Angel…”

Aziraphale continued to stare at her a long moment before her eyes darting away to the window, the floor, her hands. “I-I…know what you’re going to say.”

“…Do you?”

“You – you’re going to say…” Aziraphale swallowed. “I mean…Heaven ordered me not to use so many miracles. Then I got discorporated. Then Hell was able to slip in during my absence and – and get a win, I suppose. So many died in Alexander’s wars, and I got discorporated shortly after it all started. I heard War herself was directly involved at the bequest of Hell, and I could do nothing. And the past two centuries, while you’ve been in Hell, Heaven has gotten a lot of work done, what with those _a-awful_ Crusades…”

Crowley was frozen, rather like a snake, unsure which direction to move. “Angel…?”

“And it clearly suggests that…or implies that it is possible to assume that, perhaps…Heaven and Hell _are_ …collaborating, perhaps,” she whispered. “Just…like you said.”

For a long moment, Crowley didn’t say anything. Crowley, who believed the worst of both Heaven and Hell, had accepted this thought with ease when she’d made the connection all those centuries ago. Manipulating the playing field, sacrificing pawns in turn, cooperating to ensure both sides got what they wanted as the foot soldiers were caught up in the glories of fighting for what they perceived to be the just – or unjust – course of action…

It was, like all wars – which are inherently political in nature – a matter in which those with power win, and those who have faith in their leaders always lose.

And if you don’t have faith, you probably lose, anyway.

It was something Aziraphale was unaccustomed to. Crowley might be an optimist who looked on the bright things to get by, but she also saw all the bad that the universe had to offer. When her face got shoved in mud, it was impossible not to admit that there was, in fact, mud there. The angel, on the other hand, had been taught to live and breathe a certain way, taught who was Right and who was Wrong. The concept of corruption was limited to individualism, personal failing. But an entirely corrupt system?

That kind of disillusionment was painful to strip back, and Aziraphale was resisting it full force.

Crowley inhaled and exhaled deeply as she faced the gravity of what the angel was thinking, or trying _not_ to think. It was dangerous, as most things involving the two of them were. Asking questions…as far as Crowley knew, that was what had caused her Fall. Angels didn’t Fall anymore, not since that First War…but that didn’t make it less tenuous, to doubt.

Aziraphale swallowed, cringing. “H-Heaven is…is better than that. It’s _supposed_ to be better than that.”

“I know, angel. I know it is.”

Aziraphale finally met her eyes. A silent understanding passed between them, the kind that had long existed between two beings for whom verbalization was always perilous. The kind that made words pointless. Those had become defunct when it came to the important things, the kind they’d learned could not be spoken aloud. Crowley had missed this, more than anything, while in Hell. She’d missed plants, and daylight, and humans, and wine, and socks and rainfall and children braiding her hair and chatting with old ladies and playing pranks on arseholes and smiling and–

She’d missed all the things she loved.

And she’d missed Aziraphale the mo–

“Crowley,” a bird by the windowsill suddenly said in an unnatural, high voice. “You are behind on temptations.”

Crowley and Aziraphale both jumped, the latter giving a small squeak. She immediately slapped a hand over her mouth, staring at Crowley with horrified eyes. Crowley glanced to the bird; the eyes were clouded over. They couldn’t see, it was just an auditory contact from Hell, as usual. Crowley mimed a shushing sound to Aziraphale, who gave a jerky, terrified nod.

“Erm, hey,” Crowley said to the bird. “What was that?”

“You’re behind on temptations,” the bird repeated. “File says you haven’t worked for over two centuries.”

“Wha–“ Crowley scoffed. “I’ve been in Hell! _Working_ in Hell, in fact!”

“Yes, so the record states,” the bird said, in a tone that indicated whoever was speaking was probably looking through files to verify. “Nonetheless, we had assignments prepared for you to finish before Pestilence gets started in, oh…about forty years.”

“So – so you’re saying you’re going to make me do all that even though I was discorporated?”

“Of course. It’s not our fault you disrupted your workflow. We’ll be expecting your reports.” With that, the bird dropped over, dead.

Crowley revived it with an absentminded wave of the hand, closing her eyes with a grimace. “Well, shit.”

“Um.” Aziraphale cleared her throat nervously, and Crowley jolted, having forgotten she was even in the room. “So that – that’s how Hell contacts you?” She pointed to the windowsill, looking unnerved. The bird shook out its blue wings, stretching comfortably, looking altogether like it had no clue that it’d just been possessed by demonic forces and revived by…also demonic forces.

Crowley shrugged. “How does Heaven do it?”

“If not in person, then by _letter,_ of course. They’re, well, usually very late because they tend to let the humans deal with delivering it. Sometimes by foot, or carrier pigeon, but always months out of date.”

“Seems inconvenient.”

“Well, at least they’re not invading the bodies of _living creatures,”_ she pointed out scathingly.

“Trust me, I’m not arguing that point.” Crowley ran her fingers over her face. “More importantly, I apparently have forty years to catch up on _two centuries_ of work. In addition to whatever else they’ll give me in the meantime…great _pestilent bullocks.”_

“What will they do if you can’t get them done?”

“Send me back to Hell, most likely.” _Where_ in Hell, it wasn’t worth specifying.

Aziraphale visibly steeled herself. For a moment, Crowley could see the warrior in her, the guardian who stood at the gate and looked over paradise. A warrior that was soft and kind not by make, but by choice. “Okay,” she said simply, eyes blazing.

And that was all it took.

Crowley reached out, and they shook hands, like it was nothing more than a straightforward deal between industrialists, businesspersons, _humans._ But it wasn’t, not at all. While perhaps not the first time that angels and demons had collaborated in secret – if the illicit dealings of their Head Offices were to be understood – it was the first time it had and would ever occur because the angel and demon were friends, who trusted each other over nearly anything else.

Their hands lingered before falling away, back to their separate sides, space consuming the breach they’d created.

~*{O}*~

A few white feathers of the angel’s wing caught on Crawly’s sleeve as the rain continued to pound against the Earth. Without much thought, they reached over and released the shafts, the barbs soft against Crowley’s fingers.

The angel drew in a sharp gasp, and Crawly started, glancing over to see what was wrong. They looked embarrassed and did not return Crawly’s gaze.

Oh. Oh, right.

Demons didn’t touch each other – not in any meaningful sense. Demons only ever touched to hurt. Physical touch was just recently invented, primarily for humans, so Crowley had ever had anything to do with it, to memory, in a good way. Before may have been different, but they had no way of knowing, with most of those memories torn into blurry fragments. They had no idea what it was like in Heaven, now. Judging by the angel’s reaction, it seemed touch was supposed to be a human thing.

That said, here on Earth, the rules were all screwed up, and Crawly was sure they’d missed the fine print somewhere on how this worked, because they were fairly sure that non-painful touching wasn’t supposed to be something demons or angels ever did with each other. A demon was not supposed to touch an angel and get away with it.

It was the first time they touched, but would not be the last.

~*{O}*~

Later, Crowley realized her list of unfinished temptations was in the packet she received with her corporation, which she hadn’t looked at because it was usually just full of reminders not to fuck it up, alongside disappointed assurances that they know she will, anyway. The two looked over the list, split it up into what made sense alongside Aziraphale’s current assignments, and got to work.

Those forty years were busy and seemingly endless. Even with Aziraphale, Crowley traveled most of the time she wasn’t working. Her only reprieve was the frequent meetings the two had, and naps where she could get them. They got it done in time, but only just. Hell sent Crowley a disappointed message via horse that they’d had extremely low expectations, but surprisingly, Crowley had managed to not be a complete failure, and even sent her a commendation for one of the especially successful temptations Aziraphale performed – which had not been so steep a learning curve as expected, in all honesty. Blessings came to Crowley as naturally as temptations, as well.

By the time Pestilence was hired on halfway through the fourteenth century, Aziraphale and Crowley agreed to avoid each other for the time being, for safety’s sake. They usually got less work when one of the Horsepersons were busy, anyway. Crowley headed for the Mali Empire to check out Suleyman Keita, who, like his nephew Mansa Maghan, was ruling poorly following the death of the much-respected Mansa Musa. Aziraphale, meanwhile, tried to quell the massacres of Jewish people that the Christians were committing under the ridiculous delusion that the Jews had somehow caused the Black Death that ravaged across Europe.

The plague, ultimately, worked out for both Heaven and Hell. Just as many people turned to sin as to the church in their despair, and Crowley wondered afterward if Pestilence hadn’t been hired on by both of their sides, after all. Mostly, she saw that there were far more who turned to nothing, and Death continued his work as always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I'm so excited to share the next chapter, you have NO IDEA.)


	8. my reasons for defying reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaahhhh this chapter was possibly my favorite to write. Starts sad, but it gets so soft. I hope you enjoy. :)

At some godly hour of the afternoon, a moth woke Crowley by speaking in Dagon’s voice, telling her about a commendation for her work in Spain. She hadn’t even _been_ there in centuries, at least before her discorporation. The moth curled up dead a moment later, its small black body and mottled wings shriveling on Crowley’s pillow as though in accusation.

Naturally, Crowley went to Spain to see what that commendation was about. This was hardly her first time getting one for something she hadn’t been involved in, so it was far from surprising. The question was simply what horrible thing the humans had concocted this time.

It was the late 15th century, and the Spanish Inquisition was in full throttle. It was started by the Catholic monarchs, a fact that amused Crowley considering Hell was blaming _her_ for it. A demon, blamed for the actions of the church? Poetic, really. Whether one’s “crime” was being a Jew, being a homosexual, or being literally anything else the Catholics disagreed with, there were legal hoops and some occasional, good old-fashioned torture to spare for everyone. She did get some pleasure out of wandering Toledo and muttering blasphemies just to confuse and enrage the authorities, at least.

The _Edict of Grace_ crap ensured that anyone could accuse anyone, and that person would be detained until their case was analyzed. That could last for up to two years, just to find out whether the detained person was guilty of anything.

The torture itself was, well, more humane than most human courts, to be fair. It was more advanced than Crowley had seen in a long time. Humans cruelty was not to be underestimated – they’d had to invent lots of new words in lots of languages just for the types of torture humans came up with. In theory, there were guidelines to follow, here – torturers were prohibited from drawing blood, could only torture a person up to three times for no more than fifteen minutes, and confessions taken under torture could be revoked in post – but that guaranteed little. People were still burned alive.

Crowley had seen the torture chambers in Hell, and humans had done far worse than this. This was nothing, she reminded herself, ignoring the ache around her breastbone. Was probably just her corporation acting up, as usual.

She watched with arms folded as a man’s face was covered with a cloth. Slowly, so slowly, his torturer poured water over his head, simulating the sensation of drowning. He choked and garbled, fighting his restrains with the helplessness of a human with everything to lose.

Okay, maybe she should…she should go somewhere else. Yeah.

She snapped and guaranteed the tortured man his freedom and a long happy life with the man he was in love with, somewhere in the countryside. Then she found a bar and drank until young Dawn with her rose-red fingers graced the horizon.

~*{O}*~

Crowley opened her eyes, which was the first sign that something was off. While she did enjoy sleeping on occasion, she had no memory of deciding to go to sleep, not recently. Or of going to sleep. Or of getting into a bed, which she was now in.

“What the Heaven..."

Her gravelly declaration caused a crash across the room, and she struggled to sit up. The light was too bright. Her whole body hurt. She did her usual, trying to isolate where the pain was, what hurt the most – but nope. All of it. Everywhere. Her entire body was aflame, stomach churning like butter. She released a shuddery breath, clenching her eyes as she tried not to vomit everywhere.

“Oh, my dear.” There was a warm hand on her shoulder, another on her cheek, drawing her face up. She kept her eyes closed as the voice tutted gently. A warm, wet cloth came up, wiping her face, her neck. She felt nothing, no emotions. Hollowness. After a moment, the warm hands eased her back onto the bed, against a soft pillow, a soft comforter pulled back over her body.

“Angel…” Crowley muttered.

“None of that. You need more sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.”

~*{O}*~

It was several dawns later before Crowley awoke again, this time to a semidarkness that spoke of twilight, and feeling much more alert. It took all of three seconds for her to understand what had happened. She only remembered the first dozen or so tankards, then it was a blur of snapshots. Dark alleys, lying in mud and human fluids, barrels and corks. Bless. It’d been a long time since she’d done something like this. This was why she didn’t like thinking about Egypt.

This time, as she sat up, the pain was focused and no more than the usual. Aziraphale reclined on a chair by the foot of the bed, ankles crossed and facing the pink sunset rays that streamed through the open window. Spring bird calls and the sour stench of alleyway waste filtered into Crowley’s awareness and she made a face.

“I’ve been lying in shit for an indeterminate amount of time, angel. I don’t need to keep smelling it now, too,” she said.

Aziraphale, unsurprised and unbothered, placed a ribbon in the book she was reading and spoke sternly. “I thought it might be preferable to the smell of your breath, which rivals that of the king’s most inebriated party guests.”

Crowley winced. “Erm. How long was I…”

“I’m sure I don’t know how long you’ve been drinking away your brains, Crowley. I brought you to this inn only three days ago.”

“Right.” Crowley sighed. “Sorry about that.”

_“Sorry?”_ Aziraphale stood and swiveled to face her, glaring, hands on her hips. “Crowley. What. Happened.”

“’S nothing. I was just…”

She raised her eyebrows.

Crowley winced again and watched her fingers uneasily curl over the sheets. “Really, it was nothing. Just got a little carried away, alright?”

“It’s…it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you this bad,” Aziraphale said, softly enough that Crowley’s eyes were drawn to the angel’s face again. Aziraphale watched her back with concern etched like calligraphy across her skin. “Please, tell me what happened.”

Crowley swallowed. Nothing for it. “Got a commendation.”

“For?”

Crowley gestured to the world at large. “You know what for, angel. If God or a Horseperson isn’t involved, then who gets the blame whenever something bad happens?”

Aziraphale visibly softened. “Oh, dear. The Inquisition?”

“The very one,” she confirmed, as though her flippancy would cover up the fact that she’d become blind-drunk for multiple days, possibly even a week, just because she’d seen humans doing something they’d done for centuries and been blamed for it. It was nothing new, the way humans treated each other. They’d always been this way. She’d learned what Cain had done a while after the fact, but the capacity for true evil was always there, from the start. It was like they were programmed to be vicious, and maybe the good ones were the ones going against their natural instincts.

Crowley shook her head. She didn’t really believe that. Humans weren’t inherently good or bad. That was the whole point of Free Will.

“It’s…not an easy thing to see,” Aziraphale said carefully.

“We’ve seen plenty of thing that are hard to see.”

“But it doesn’t get easier.”

Crowley sighed. “No, it doesn’t.” She let out a hollow laugh, an approximation of one. “Do you know why I can’t stand to braid my hair, angel?”

“I’m…sure I don’t.”

“’S just…you’d think it’d be rain, y’ know?” she said, scratching at aforementioned hair, which was long and knotted and full of filth. “You’d think it’d be something _obvious_ that would make me think of the Flood…but it’s not. It’s braids.”

Aziraphale’s face slackened with confusion, then sorrow, guilt, bad memories. “Because you had them in your hair, when…?”

Crowley shook her head, turning her fully yellow eyes on her companion. “No. The kids did ‘em.”

“What?”

“The kids, living in the area. They’d seen how long my hair was. Wanted to play with it. A couple of them knew how to braid hair and taught the others, and they started making all these little ones in my hair…” She trailed off, both clinging and rejecting the memories that flooded her of those days, those tiny hands, fleshy palms, fingers barely long enough to grasp two of her own. Big, bright eyes. Tiny scraps of ribbon, cloth, string, to tie off each twisting braid. Smudged cheeks, smiles, missing teeth. Tugging on knots in her locks, giggling when Crowley growled at them like it was all a game, like they knew she could never hurt them. And she wouldn’t, didn’t, couldn’t.

“Would you believe…it isn’t rain for me, either?” Aziraphale said after a moment, tone self-deprecating, eyes averted. “Not that I like it overmuch…but it’s the smell of fresh wood. Of newly cut planks.”

“The ark.”

“Yes, the ark.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Was there anything to say to that? Not really.

“That’s why I should be able to handle this,” Crowley continued, soft. “I’ve seen so much worse. But I just…I don’t…”

Without warning, Aziraphale suddenly reached over and hugged Crowley, swiftly, briefly, a little awkwardly. Crowley returned it in an instant, as though she’d been waiting for it, and let go just as fast when Aziraphale drew away.

“You’re allowed to hurt, you know,” Aziraphale murmured, hovering.

Crowley shook her head, eyes cast downward. Not in disagreement, per se, but because she suddenly felt _too much_. She needed out of this conversation, needed to move past it. A deep breath later, she glanced up and tried for a smirk. “So, what’re you in Spain for, angel? Can’t get enough of the local Spanish cuisine?”

Crowley knew Aziraphale wouldn’t let her leave it at that, not forever. But, for now, Aziraphale sat on the bed beside her at a respectable distance, perhaps a touch closer than they might normally, and said, “You know, I only came to Spain because I’m collecting prohibited literature.”

Crowley grinned, grateful for the subject change, for Aziraphale not forcing her to talk when she wasn’t ready. That had been enough vulnerability for one century. “Seriously? You, an angel, are going about, collecting books that have been outright _banned?”_

Aziraphale huffed, suppressing a small smile. “Well, it’s just absurd, the stuff they put on those lists! They’ve got these ban lists all over Europe – as though words should ever be censored! Unless they’re hurtful, of course. Anyway, I’ve been…keeping an eye out for them. For…historic purposes.”

Crowley grinned wider. “You’re collecting books the church has banned, angel,” she said, singsong.

“Oh, hush, you silly snake. It’s not like they’re doing a decent job of it, regardless. All these texts were extremely easy to find copies of.”

“What is it, then? Porn, satanic tomes? A scientist insisting that science exists?”

“Erm. It’s mostly religious texts, actually. Just…ones the Inquisition disagrees with.”

Crowley tsked. “That is _so_ boring.”

Aziraphale rolled her eyes, visibly pleased that Crowley was engaging her. The worried crease was still on her forehead, but her eyes were once again alight. “Would you prefer hearing about the time I rescued the _Codex Gigas_ from a book burning last century?”

Crowley leaned against the short headboard and wall, chuckling. “Wha – the Devil’s Bible? Of _course_ , I want to hear that; what do you take me for?”

Aziraphale launched into a story in which she’d braved a book burning some little religious village was doing, and how she’d been on assignment and got distracted by the heinous activity and had to put a stop to it. Crowley watched her and felt that pain, that hurt that echoed human suffering, dissipate, just a little. If she prodded for it, it was still there, but it had settled. She would probably talk about it later. But, for now, she was more than happy to laugh with Aziraphale, to tease her, to bask in that caring spirit and kindness she never felt she deserved, but cherished, cherished endlessly. She loved Aziraphale so much, didn’t she?

Crowley choked on nothing and fell into a coughing fit.

“Goodness, are you alright?”

Crowley waved her away, shoving her red face into the sheets for a moment, eyes wide and brain abuzz.

What the _fuck?_

Her every sense fought for her attention while her insides fell into an unhelpful loop of _love Aziraphale love Aziraphale love Aziraphal_ e that she couldn’t escape. What. How did. What was. She couldn’t. Could? No. Did she? Yes. Maybe. What? How. Why. When?

She. She love. Loved. Angel? _This_ angel? Huh?

A thousand years and a few real seconds later, Crowley drew back and stared at Aziraphale, working her jaw, too flustered to properly reign in her expression.

“Are you okay?” Aziraphale asked.

“Mm. Yup. Fine. Good,” Crowley replied hoarsely. Monosyllables, yes. Mouth, vocal cords, talking. She could do that.

Blushing like mad – stop that. Undemonic. Wouldn’t stop. Gah.

Aziraphale fretted over her another moment until Crowley managed to string more than two words together and shove her off, forcing the heat in her cheeks down through sheer hellish will. They continued to talk a few moments more, but Aziraphale couldn’t stay; she had an assignment over in Italy and needed to get traveling. Crowley apologized for disrupting her schedule, but Aziraphale brushed it off. An invisible “what are friends for?” hung in the air between them, as loud as if it had been spoken. Aziraphale was too nice to her, always.

As soon as she was alone, Crowley laid back down in her little rented bed, face aflame and eyes wide. She wasn’t sleepy but planned to leave in the morning, rather than this inconvenient hour. And then she was out of here – booking it for another country, maybe another continent. Anywhere but here.

Crowley blinked at the ceiling. _Love Aziraphale._ She blinked again. _I love Aziraphale._ She shook her head. _Love._ She shoved a pillow against her face and groaned.

_You love Aziraphale, you damned idiot!_ her brain supplied helpfully. _Thanks for noticing!_

It was no use. She thrust the thought aside, determined to evaluate it later in theory, and to never revisit it in practice. But it wouldn’t _shut up._ Her entire being was hung up on that one moment. What had Aziraphale been saying, when the thought crossed her mind? She couldn’t even remember. The angel had shone in the pinkish sunlight, illuminated and kind and soft, expression animated and wrinkles a tale of a life spent caring, a broad body that loved to partake in the world, green eyes belying an eternity of stories tucked away in a brilliant mind.

She was beautiful, and she had always been, and Crowley loved her.

The thought had been so distinct. The word “love” – in the language they were using – without hesitation. But…but _love,_ really? That seemed a bit _much._ Gauche, even. She…she liked Aziraphale, obviously. A lot. They were friends. They knew each other and worked together well. Crowley wanted to talk to her all the time, to see her more often, to be around her and protect her from Heaven and everything that might harm her angel, wanted to coil around her like a snake and _never let go…_

Okay. Hmm. _Yikes._

Come to think of it, she was starting to suspect that calling her “angel” was less about her species and more of a – a…

_A damn pet name._

Crowley rolled over onto her side, staring at her forearm, speckled over with scales that she lazily traced with a finger, connecting them like constellations. She, Crowley, a demon of Hell, a fallen angel… _loved._

Not just liked. Not just coveted. Loved. And loved an _angel,_ at that. What a thing.

_Why do you love the humans so much, Mother?_

_Because they are more important to me than anything else, little angel._

Crowley blinked slowly in the darkness. The deafening confusion and panic evaporated in a breath, leaving her warm, centered, if with an oddly fast heartbeat. She waited for the internal mayhem to return, but it didn’t. She was fine. She felt exactly the same as she had for centuries, for millennia…

_Ah._ Blessed–

Come _on._

_Really?_

No, that’s not–

Wow. Well.

Crowley was fucked.

She sighed in exasperation. At herself, at Aziraphale, at the world. It was not something she could even begin to think about or understand. It was an abstract concept, to apply the word to herself and her feelings. She just knew what she felt, not necessarily what to call it. _Love_ seemed right, but foreign. It wasn’t something meant for demons like her.

_You love them, don’t you? The humans. You care._

Crowley smiled to herself. Though the memory was tainted with sorrow, she remembered how stunned Aziraphale had looked at the realization that she loved. The surety. Maybe demons weren’t _supposed_ to love, but since when did a demon ever do what they were supposed to?

More accurately, since when did _Crowley_ do what she was supposed to?

So. Crowley was in love with her angel.

Take _that,_ ineffability. She had God beat.

The realization should have changed more than it did, but it was like it had been sitting there, waiting for Crowley’s attention, for an extremely long time. _Love is patient, love is kind_. At least it answered some questions, clarified some…wants. Like the sudden, burning desire to _tell_ Aziraphale, and aforementioned wrapping her in her arms for eternity. But it suddenly crossed Crowley’s mind that, if the angel had seen her love for the humans so early on…did she also know of Crowley’s love for _her?_ It was possible. And a little embarrassing to think Aziraphale might’ve known all this time while Crowley was oblivious.

The warm feeling that had pervaded her along this train of thought faltered when she remembered what this meant. Loving, wanting, loving. Because…Aziraphale was an angel, and Crowley was a demon. No matter what, nothing could come of it. Just like their friendship was stagnant, a – a _romance_ wasn’t even on the table.

Crowley flopped onto her back again to gaze at the ceiling. There was no moon that night, only the slightest hint of starlight coming through the open shutters.

A demon loved an angel. Perhaps she had for centuries, maybe even longer than that. It seemed so obvious as she lay there, like she should have known it all along. But she was still a demon. It had been a very, very long time since she last felt Love of the…other kind. She knew she loved humans, she loved the Earth, she loved so many things. But love, love like _that?_ It was so…so human.

She hadn’t thought to look for it.

Crowley knew, unwaveringly that spring night in Spain, that she would continue to love Aziraphale, no matter the forces that pushed them apart. She couldn’t imagine doing anything else at this point. All there was to do was to keep doing this. Keep loving her, as it seemed she had done for possibly thousands of years. And maybe, just maybe, a day would come when a demon could love an angel, and that was okay.

And maybe the angel would…would love her back.

If she closed her eyes, she could see it. A love confession, like in the stories. Casual affection, without the shame. Time spent together, without the fear. A life shared and intertwined, unhidden. It could never happen, not really, but Crowley had a blessed good imagination.

Despite expectations, she drifted off to sleep, and she dreamt of what she liked best.

_Loved,_ that is.


	9. confirm our conviction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like y’all are going to think I got the first bit of this chapter from listening to Hamilton a thousand times (which I have certainly done), but it’s actually just leftover information from my American Revolution phase as a pre-teen.  
> That said, if you want to learn more about the yellow fever outbreak of 1793 in Philadelphia, which is briefly mentioned, then I highly recommend “Fever 1793” by Laurie Halse Anderson. It’s my favorite book (one of them, anyway). Though, considering the state of the world…maybe save it for in a few years or something.  
> Anyway, on with the chapter.

“Animals don’t kill each other with clever machines, angel,” Crowley drawled. “Only humans do that.”

Aziraphale turned to him, in his cream, embroidered coat, thick froths of delicate lace, pure white breeches, shimmering pink shoes, and an expression like someone had just offered him an extremely rare, misprinted bible. “Crowley!” he cried.

The French Revolution was a messy business. Despite Hell’s perceptions, Crowley hadn’t had a thing to do with it, though, as a demon, he was always up for a little rebellion in theory. He’d been over in the colonies the past few decades, dealing with _their_ revolution and the political disaster that followed it. While he’d certainly tipped his hand here and there, the humans were setting up a government so ridiculous that Crowley couldn’t quite decide whether to laugh or cry. The “Americans” likening themselves to slaves due to Britain taxing them for their own bloody wars while _actually owning fucking slaves_ – like, really? The hypocrisy was straight up impressive.

And horrifying. Absolutely horrifying.

Humans had kept slaves for nearly as long as humans had existed. But not like this. And they’d come so far, Crowley thought, but sometimes…sometimes it certainly didn’t feel that way. He’d intended to stick around for a bit to see how it’d play out, but then a yellow fever epidemic passed through Philly and…Crowley’d had enough of plagues to last a thousand lifetimes.

He received a commendation from Hell about his “work in France” and, having not learned his lesson from the Inquisition, popped over to see what was happening. Obviously, he’d heard of it when the colonists said “fuck you” to the French’s request for assistance, but still…humans had quite a way of _executing_ their ideals.

It was when he was touring the prisons that he found – or rather, heard – Aziraphale, who he’d last heard was setting up a bookshop or something. But no, that was definitely his voice. “Unhand me, this is really quite unnecessary and I’m sure if we all just try to communicate with one another, we can work out this kerfuffle–“

And now, the issues of humans, the revolutions and the blood, all became a backdrop as Aziraphale faced him in chains, and Crowley wondered, dumbfounded, how the mere sound of his own voice had been enough to make Aziraphale smile like that. Crowley’s heart made some horrible dinging noise only he could hear, and he tried not to blush. He’d been doing far too much of that since his revelation in Spain three centuries ago, but he couldn’t seem to get a leash on it.

“Oh, good lord,” Aziraphale intoned, looking him up and down in an unsubtle once-over. The outfit was new, of course, he’d changed as soon as he’d arrived in France and seen the local couture.

They had a little back-and-forth, as they were wont to do in any situation – _and really, angel? Crepes? All this for crepes? Never change_ – but it was at Aziraphale’s mention of “frivolous miracles” that Crowley hissed and immediately snapped away the cuffs. They clattered to the floor in dual clunks of metal and shivering chains.

“I suppose I should tha–“

Crowley cut him off, standing from his Very Cool lounge against the bars. “You know you never need to thank me. Not for this. ‘S just our Arrangement, angel, but we can’t let anyone find out I rescued you–“

“I know that.” Aziraphale straightened his posture, looking over at him haughtily. “We’ve been doing this for centuries, now. I’m hardly about to go blabbing to the streets.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Crowley said grimly.

It was true. There were a thousand ways they could be found out. After all, Hell was everywhere, even in the bugs. And if they ever found out about him and Aziraphale, he would have no real defense against them.

His human corporation aside, Crowley was not a high-ranking demon. He was easily the most high-ranking among the Earth agents, none of whom had lasted close to as long as he did, but a foot soldier was a foot soldier. Hell was not like Heaven, so strict that they monitored every little miracle usage, but that didn’t mean there weren’t consequences. A little rebellion in an institution founded on rebellion was bound to be expected. But, likewise, every demon was expected to be loyal to Hell above all, with minor deviations being overlooked for the sake of the bigger picture. Demons had learned the hard way that micromanagement was no way of keeping workers in line.

No. The best way was to make it seem like demons had a good deal of freedom in order to increase their loyalty. And if a demon strayed too far, then nothing was going to hurt more than having every last bit of freedom stripped away.

In the eyes of humans, the fallen angels – the demons, the devils, whatever they called them – were essentially bound by their own instinctual drive to sin and spread sin. In a way, they were almost accurate, if sinful instincts were replaced with corporate constraints. The Fallen were trapped by something of their own making.

And later, as Aziraphale smiled and chatted with him over crepes in the middle of Revolutionary France, Crowley felt trapped here, too. By that gaze, by this planet, but his own twice-damned heart. When did he become such a sap, again?

_You’re doing very well, little angel._

_But this star was supposed to look different. How do I fix it, Mother?_

_Just because it’s not as expected doesn’t mean it’s wrong, my star._

Something in Crowley’s gut twisted. Sometimes, memories from Before would strike him out of nowhere, and a fresh ache enveloped his soul, a non-tangible pain that he thought he’d long since buried. Every memory he still retained was nothing but voices, no images or faces or sensations. And all he ever remembered were questions. As far as he could tell, he Fell for asking them.

So, as a demon, he fostered his own curiosity – not that it needed the help – out of spite. If he Fell for asking questions, then he would take advantage of that freedom as much as he could.

So, he asked one now: _If Hell tried to drag me back Down, how would I defend myself? What is the one thing that would ensure my survival against other demons?_

He didn’t need God to answer this time. He needed something Blessed.

Ground could become consecrated, as could select objects, but those were inconvenient; how, exactly, was he meant to carry around a piece of the floor, let alone without burning himself? As far as Blessed objects, those were far and few between, and what exactly would he do with it, anyway? Throw it at his attacker and hope that second or two of contact would cause some distracting blisters?

No, he needed something else. Something with more than the power to simply hurt, to blister, to wound. He would need something that could kill.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to pay more attention as Aziraphale detailed his plans to organize his manuscripts by a very specific system only he would understand – a bit of bastardry Crowley could get behind – and not on the decision he’d just made.

Crowley needed holy water.

~*{O}*~

Problem: now Crowley had to _get_ some holy water.

For the next handful of decades, he sort of just…kept an eye out, in case some might pop up somewhere. After all, he still had to avoid crowds because priests went around sprinkling strangers on occasion. However, some regular, devout humans kept little bottles of holy water for their families and homes; Crowley wouldn’t even have to go into a church. It wasn’t hard to come by.

What Crowley discovered was that most of that water wasn’t actually holy, at all.

Human priests were the ones who typically performed the Blessings, but only an angel or a Blessed individual could make something holy; otherwise, it was just a formality, and as holy water had no effect on humans at all, this was a moot point. For them, anyway.

In other words, Crowley, at no small pain to himself, spent a lot of time stealing tiny bottles of ordinary water. He then drank them out of spite because he could and that made him mad.

With that option ruled out and wanting to save an actual _church_ as a last resort…he resigned himself to asking Aziraphale.

They had the Arrangement, which, after centuries and hundreds of instances of “lending a hand when needed,” had earned its capitalization. He was pretty sure this would fall under that umbrella, somehow. And Aziraphale would understand why Crowley wanted it. With this, he could protect himself and Aziraphale, should the time come when their allegiances might be thrown into question – or, further, known to lie elsewhere than where they were meant to.

The angel was even smarter than he was, smarter than _anyone_ in Crowley’s opinion. He would want to help Crowley with this.

But…would it put Aziraphale at risk? Possibly. The Blessing would require a miracle, yes, but Blessing some water would probably be easy enough to excuse and shouldn’t get him into trouble with Head Office. Besides, Aziraphale was always trying to find subtle ways to extend kindness to his demon friend. He’d protected the demon from the rain and, no matter how much time passed, Crowley simply couldn’t forget that, how Aziraphale let himself become drenched by the rainfall while a demon stayed dry when they didn’t even know each other. Crowley didn’t even doubt that Aziraphale would agree to it, not with their history, not with this…whatever it was, between them, whatever word suited. Love, for Crowley, though he tried not to dwell on it. Love, for Aziraphale, maybe, hopefully. They understood each other, and Aziraphale was so clever. He’d see that this was the safest option.

Asking for help was…not one of Crowley’s strong suits. But it was a defense against the unknown that was a necessary good. Crowley was not much a fighter, he was a strategist; he didn’t need to work harder, but smarter. He needed the holy water.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Crowley arranged a meeting with Aziraphale in St. James’ Park. It was a bad pain day, even with his walking stick, and he found himself gritting his teeth before he’d even walked there, his legs barely keeping him up. He was irritated and on edge from the pain, calves clenching and cramping, shoulders and elbows searing with discomfort. His stomach churned with inexplicable nausea.

But he’d decided he was going to ask for it that day.

It wasn’t easy to get himself to ask this of his friend, but he trusted that Aziraphale would take care of him, in his kind way. He trusted Aziraphale with his life. It was almost silly – foolish, even, how quickly Crowley had fallen.

But it hadn’t been quick at all, had it?

No, he’d sauntered vaguely downward, of course.

So, Crowley braced himself on his stick, turned to Aziraphale, and asked him for the one thing that could, someday, save his life.

And Aziraphale said no.

~*{O}*~

_Mother, I–_

_No more questions. You need to have Faith in me, little angel._

_But Mother, I only want–_

_I know. But you must stop asking, my star. Trust in me. I know best._

~*{O}*~

Afterward, Crowley sat in a tavern and got wasted. It took only an hour for him to slump to the floor, incoherent and still chugging his bottomless bottle. It tasted sour and salty, or maybe that was the tears – it was hard to say.

Crowley felt lost.

It was not a new feeling, by any means; there was almost a comfort to its familiarity, but not really. It had been far worse in the past. But alongside this hollowness and confusion, this displacement of his own existence, was the blistering sensation of being utterly alone, abandoned, betrayed. He sat on the floor, and it was cold, and he was damp.

He let himself have Faith in something, he let himself trust…and he was rejected.

_Again._

Maybe he always would, he thought.

There were only so many things a demon could hold true to his chest, and for those to be cast into doubt…it felt like he’d been a puppet, pulled and tugged on, and he didn’t notice the strings until they were cut. He had gotten used to these aches a long time ago. His heart had never hurt like this before, though. _Rejection._ Why did it ache so? Was it possible to get used to it, eventually?

Aziraphale’s face was seared into his mind, muttonchops and all. Horrified, disgusted, afraid. He’d put that expression there.

“S not what I wanted it for,” Crowley whispered to no one. It wasn’t a suicide pill, of course not. No amount of bodily pain would make him want to off himself. He wouldn’t ever leave Aziraphale like that – Heaven, he would never leave Aziraphale, period, not even if Lucifer popped up and tried to drag him down himself. That was the whole point.

He wondered where he’d gone wrong. He and Aziraphale, he thought they were on the same wavelength or something shitty and poetic like that. After all this, after millennia, they could read each other like those books his angel loved so much, collected and saved and referenced when time went still.

And he’d been sure…he’d become so blessed _hopeful_ …that Aziraphale loved him back.

Did he misinterpret this, somehow? Where had he messed up? _Fraternizing?_

_Obviously._

Eventually, Crowley realized it was well past midnight and there was no one else in the tavern, his fuck-off miracle having kept the owners from kicking him out in the streets. It was quiet and dark and almost peaceful, in utter contrast to the chaos within. So, he leaned back onto the hardwood floors, not the least bit mindful of how his body complained. The alcohol numbed him too well for him to care.

He woke up hours later to his own vomiting, body convulsing with the pain of processing the many bottles of cheap swill he’d forced down his own throat. Whatever he’d failed to feel last night, he felt tenfold as his body ejected the contents of his stomach the old-fashioned way.

Crowley miracled it away when he was done. He was in pain, but he wasn’t an arsehole.

He found an inn, collapsed on a bed, and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all knew this plot point was coming. Here's where the rejection-sensitive dysphoria is coming into play. I promise a fix is right around the corner! For now, let’s let our poor snake sleep.


	10. strange how we know we each other

When Crowley finally woke up, it was, as usual, to a message from Hell via a possessed creature, this time one of the termites infesting the inn. New assignment, yadda yadda. Once it keeled over, dead, Crowley sat up and realized two things.

First was that sleep worked wonders on his mental state. He felt peaceful and settled.

Second, something brought on by the first, was more like revisiting a memory. _Holy water won’t just kill your body, it will destroy you completely!_ That was what Aziraphale had said in that argument. Crowley paused, remembering the fear in Aziraphale’s eyes, in his voice. The way his lip trembled.

Crowley rubbed his hands over his face, which had lost the sunglasses sometime during the prior night’s proceedings. He’d thought Aziraphale refused him because he didn’t care. He’d been so sure beforehand of the outcome that the deviation from it caused him to panic.

In the light of a new morning, rested and physically improved, Crowley started to suspect that he’d maybe come to the wrong conclusion.

Of course, Aziraphale cared about him. Aziraphale reacted the way he did because _he was worried about Crowley._

Oh.

He was reminded of a moment, back when King Arthur was still in charge. When Crowley had made an observation and an offer in one, in a reaction that Crowley now understood as fear. Aziraphale was naturally methodical and slow in all of his choices, always carefully weighing each option before selecting the route he would take. But, he reacted quickly and impulsively when it was in fear. It was a misstep in their communication, in this dance they did, this game they played with each other where they had to pretend so much.

He didn’t want to watch the centuries pass by again without resolving this. He didn’t want a single day wasted.

When he left his rented room, snapping spare sunglasses onto his face as he went, he discovered he’d slept for about a week; the innkeepers were miraculously unfazed by this and he left a tip for whoever would clean the room when he was gone.

Aziraphale’s new bookshop was up and running by then, and old by human standards with over sixty years under its metaphorical belt. Ostensibly, the books were to be sold to the public, but Crowley could count on both hands the number of books he’d seen the angel sell in the years since. It was, nonetheless, a good front, as it allowed Aziraphale a place to hoard all his collected works from his years of global traveling, not to mention the various little bits of woodcarving that he’d kept over the years. Crowley always meant to ask where he’d picked up that little hobby, anyway.

Crowley headed there now. He liked the bookshop because it meant he knew where Aziraphale was most of the time, whereas they both tended to lead nomadic existences over the years, with occasional villas, temples, and such when appropriate.

He got out of the rented coach in front of the bookshop. It was closed. Normally, he’d just burst in anyway and ignore the lock, but not today. Today, he was going to do this right, and it was going to be fine. He could fix this. He was going to fix this.

Taking a deep breath, he knocked.

After a minute in which no angel showed up, he knocked again, louder, and continued knocking until the door opened.

With a creak, the door swung in and Aziraphale appeared in the entryway, looking annoyed. “Can’t you read the sign? We’re clos–“ His eyes widened when he took in the demon on his doorstep.

The sun was setting at Crowley’s back, and the purples of the clouds reflected in the little spectacles that had slipped down the angel’s nose. He held the book he’d been reading, but Crowley didn’t look at it. He stared at Aziraphale’s face, and his heart was already sinking.

“I’m ssssssorry,” he said quickly, hiss slipping out unintended.

“Erm.” Aziraphale swallowed. “Crowley?”

He nodded unnecessarily, pushing up his sunglasses. “Can we talk?”

Aziraphale considered him a moment before stepping back, allowing entry. “I suppose you should come in,” he suggested mildly. “Tea?”

A few minutes later, Crowley was sprawled on the couch with a cup of earl grey and Aziraphale sat in his armchair opposite the demon with Darjeeling.

“So,” Aziraphale said in a business-like manner. “What do you have to say, then?”

“I, er, thought I’d give a go at explaining myself a little better.”

“Why? You’ve made it clear that you have no need for me or my help.”

Crowley stiffened. _I have plenty of people to fraternize with, angel. I don’t need you._ “And you made it clear you don’t want to help me.”

“Help you end your life?” Aziraphale whispered scathingly. _Well, the feeling is mutual. Obviously._ “No, shockingly, I have no interest in such a pursuit.”

Crowley made himself take a deep breath. “I told you, that issssn’t what I want it for.”

“Then what _do_ you want it for, Crowley? Hmm?” _I’m not bringing you a – a suicide pill, Crowley._

“It’s a sssafety precaution,” he stated. _It’s just insurance._ “To usssse against other demonsss in case Hell ever hasss a reason to want to attack me.”

Aziraphale frowned, seeming to realize something. “You – you would really…Hmph. I suppose there is no such thing as loyalty is Hell, is there?”

“There issss. That’s m’ whole point.”

“I see. _You’re_ just not loyal, then.”

Crowley waved a hand in the air. “To Hell!”

“So, if your demon friends came along, you would…willingly splash them with…it?” Aziraphale asked, every syllable carefully enunciated.

Crowley stared. Was it entirely pathetic to admit he didn’t have any friends among demons? With Aziraphale’s attitude, he wasn’t exactly in the mood to say vulnerable things, but he was also supposed to be here to fix things, so he gave it a go. “Demons don’t have friendsss. Anyway, they’d probably send Hastur or Ligur after me – or if I’m really unlucky, both – and I don’t think they know the meaning of the word. So that’s not a problem.”

Something in Aziraphale’s eyes softened.

Crowley sighed. “If Hell found out that” – _I’m apparently desperately and hopelessly in love with you_ – “we knew each other, then I would need something to protect myself. They don’t send rude notes like Heaven does and you know it.”

Aziraphale sat up straighter. “No, Hell is much more barbaric.” Crowley didn’t comment on that. “But – surely there is a better way to go about defending your person. I mean – to go to such lengths…”

“I wound never use it on myself, angel. I swear.”

“But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t get some on you by accident! You could spill it, or it could splash–“

“That’ssss a risk I’m willing to take!”

“And I’m not!” Aziraphale shouted.

There was a tense silence as the two regarded one another. Aziraphale held himself like a rod, indignant, every bit the soldier he was supposed to have been. The Guardian, the Protector, the one who fought until he fell to his knees. Crowley watched as something in him cracked, some resolve shook loose, and he deflated in a trembling breath.

“Crowley,” the angel whispered, “don’t ask this of me.”

The demon closed his eyes. It stung, for a different reason. He did want the holy water, still. It was the logical solution. Yet, as always, he valued Aziraphale over his safety, and if letting go of that – for now – would preserve their friendship, would keep Aziraphale by his side…he would do it. Even at his own expense. It was a feeling as old as he felt.

Crowley sighed deeply, and lifted his arms out, palms up. “I give. I won’t ask you anymore.”

A weighty pause passed by and Aziraphale looked immensely relieved.

“I – Um,” Aziraphale whispered after a moment. “I believe I…said some things that I did not mean.”

Crowley understood what he meant. “Me too.” It was the closest thing to saying “I _do_ need you” that he could bear. “It’s fine. I think that was just a bad day all around.”

Aziraphale, if it was possible, seemed further relieved by this reassurance, like he’d harbored the same fear that Crowley had, of ruining what they had over this argument.

Despite millennia of knowing each other, they didn’t argue often. Yes, they had their banter, and the traded insults about Heaven and Hell and _foul fiend_ , but it was rare that those carried any real malice, after all this time. The barbs no longer stung, and they were not intended to sting. The way they spoke to each other was a language all its own.

They had their disagreements. This felt heavier, but it had passed them, for now. Crowley was disappointed, but…well.

There was very little he wouldn’t do for Aziraphale now, even as some corner of his brain pointed out that Aziraphale clearly did not share this extreme devotion. Crowley pushed it aside. After all, maybe a part of caring for someone was that there _were_ limits to how far one would go.

Crowley was a demon. He would never claim to know anything about love.

And so, they continued as normal. As though Crowley hadn’t admitted to his loyalties lying beyond that which was all he should have known. As though Aziraphale hadn’t admitted to caring about a member of the Fallen more than he ever should. As though they, perhaps, had always known it was this way.

And it always would be.

~*{O}*~

As it turned out, walking on consecrated ground hurt like a bitch.

It wasn’t like Crowley had never done so before. He’d had the odd run-in with a tavern built over an old church, synagogue, mosque, or something similar; sometimes, he abandoned temptations and assignments that brought him too near Blessed ground. However, those instances were always brief, and Crowley’s own self-preservation and general awareness of his body made it easy to avoid such places.

Never had he remained in such a place for more than a few seconds, let alone held a conversation while doing so.

As suave as he felt in his black and grey pinstriped suit, with a fancy black fedora and oversized sunglasses to match, he had the sinking feeling that hopscotching down the aisle might have been working against the mysterious-and-dashing-knight-in-shining-black-armor vibe he’d been aiming for. And maybe it wasn’t a perfect rescue considering Aziraphale had to do half of it herself but…it was the thought that counted?

The look Aziraphale gave him after he handed her that bag of books more than made up for such feelings, even if it also made his heart feel squiggly. _Worth it._

Aziraphale insisted that Crowley come in for a drink afterward. Normally, he would’ve jumped at the chance, but as he genuinely wasn’t certain the skin of his feet wouldn’t just pop right off with such a movement, he declined and returned to his flat.

Crowley assumed the injuries would just heal after a bit of time left alone, but quickly found that holy wounds were very different from the aches inflicted by his demonic core. Those were at least of a variety that suited his nature, but this was something Heavenly and he did not like it one bit. Scales crawled up his legs, each one feeling as Blessed as his toes, sizzling with holiness against his damned flesh.

A week later, Aziraphale came to visit to discuss an assignment. When she saw the state Crowley was in, she tutted at him and fussed a bit before simply miracling the pain away, as only an angel was capable of doing, insisting Crowley ought to have asked her to begin with if it was that bad.

Crowley didn’t say that Aziraphale and holy wounds were something of a touchy subject at this point. He didn’t say that the last time Crowley had asked her for help, Aziraphale had refused to. He didn’t say thank you, and none of that was bound to change.

~*{O}*~

Crowley felt like a coward and a liar.

Technically, his actions did not necessarily make him a liar, but this was certainly cutting it close. Yes, perhaps it had been _implied_ that Crowley wasn’t going to go seeking out any holy water, but he hadn’t _explicitly_ said such. He’d simply said he wouldn’t ask Aziraphale for it, and he wasn’t.

After all this time, Crowley knew holy water, the real stuff, the _good_ stuff – in a literal sense – was only going to be found in actual churches. He’d felt it, while in that church a couple of decades back, during the Blitz. Even surrounded by holiness, he could sense how it specifically lay within that…birdbath-looking thing, whatever it was called. There was probably a word for it.

Anyway, he was involved in some shady dealings in that decade – well, okay, he was involved in shady dealings in any given decade, but this particular one, the 60s, he was getting more personally engaged, rather than simply observing with a well-placed suggestion or nudge here and there.

Crowley was still convinced, after all this time, that holy water would be his greatest defense. He’d heard rumors and stirrings in Hell when he’d visited for a little ceremony after the Second World War – moldy participation ribbons for everyone involved – and he didn’t like the sound of things. He got the sense that demons were getting…restless. He didn’t want to take any chances. A bored demon was a curious demon, and if anyone looked too closely at him, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to explain what they found.

So, Aziraphale wasn’t helping him with this. That was fine. Probably best to keep Aziraphale out of it, anyway; that way, no one could trace it as a connection between them. Instead, he was turning to the most inventive group of them all – humans. Clever buggers. He wasn’t sure how he was going to go about it, only that he had James-Bond-esque imaginings of daring stunts and cunning robberies and possibly explosions if necessary. And maybe if unnecessary depending on how dramatic he felt.

First, he found Spike – nicknamed “Dangerous Spike” in the right circles. Spike was the brawn of the escapade. Despite working odd jobs to make use of his muscles, he ran a quaint bakery that Crowley made a mental note of, to take Aziraphale to sometime. He had a wife and two sons whom he loved very much. If all went well, Crowley fully intended to Bless the lot – well, okay, he was probably going to do so regardless of how it went, but still.

Next was Sally, who wore white lipstick and was a beekeeper as a day job. The rest of the time, she worked various underground gigs that relied on her incredible acrobatics. Crowley wondered if she ran away to join the circus as a child but couldn’t bring himself to ask.

An unexpected member of his little posse was the gracelessly mysterious Lance Corporal Shadwell, fresh from prison and with a strange witch-based obsession. He’d, ah…see if he could make use of the bizarre Scotsman. Awkward members of secretive organizations and cults were some of Crowley’s favorite human associates over the years.

So. Spike, Sally, Shadwell. Church, holy water, protection. He had a plan, and a way to go about said plan.

He couldn’t help the small twinge of guilt when he considered what Aziraphale would think. The angel had made his position on the matter clear, and his reasoning even more so. Crowley got it; he really did. If he switched the situation, and imagined Aziraphale asking for Hellfire…it didn’t bear thinking about. Yet, water was easier to store, and he needed that safety net more than Aziraphale did right then…and maybe he was just making excuses and being a hypocrite, but his mind had been made up for almost two centuries.

So, feeling a bit like he was betraying his friend, but too stubborn to back out, he walked past a big neon sign reading “STRIPTEASE” and the newspapers on wombats in space, and swung into his car on a raunchy, prickly evening. Crowley loved, loved, _loved_ the invention of cars. It was easily the least painful mode of transportation he’d experienced yet. In the ‘20s, he’d bought – er, acquired – this one for himself and never looked back. Honestly, screw riding horseback. Also buggies.

The twinkle of ethereal energy as he shut the side door was his only warning that he was no longer alone.

“Angel?” Crowley froze, hands hovering slightly before they fell to his lap. “What’re you doing here?”

Aziraphale’s gaze skittered as he sat in the passenger seat, to Crowley’s left – it felt strange to have the angel to his left. It made the demon feel distorted as a sense of foreboding lodged in his throat. Before Aziraphale spoke a single word, Crowley felt the air tense, he felt it sour, he felt it growing hot.

He forced his hands not to tremble as he clasped a tartan thermos full of holy water in his long, cold fingers.

Crowley discovered, on that humid London night, that he was wrong. He was a demon, but he _did_ know love, especially when it smacked him over the head like this. Aziraphale loved him back more than the demon had ever dared to hope. Bless, this was more than just a bit of returned affection and friendship, this was mutual, disgustingly sappy, besotted, head-over-arse and head-in-arse _in love_ , in every possible manner.

The danger of it was not lost on him. His heart was no longer inside his own body, regardless of how he felt it beating and clanging against his ribs; Aziraphale had handed him his own in return, with tears in his eyes. It killed the angel to give Crowley this water, this weapon, because it may kill the demon, but he did it anyway because _he loved Crowley._

_And Crowley loved him._

He swallowed back tears, unsure of whether they were of relief or sorrow or some odd mix of both. Fighting the shaking of his whole body, Crowley turned to the angel, to _his_ angel, the angel who somehow loved a demon, and, in a moment of weakness, he let himself forget the fears.

“Anywhere you want to go,” Crowley murmured, eyes wide and pleading behind large, dark shades, and he meant it more than he’d ever meant anything. He would run to the stars with his angel if he wanted that. Anything. Anything _at all._

But Aziraphale, always the smarter between them, always the more careful and better at loving, turned him down again.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he said, though his eyes shone with something else. That all he wanted was to go with Crowley wherever this thing between them would take them, for however long it may last. And they held a promise. That Aziraphale had rejected him once, and fulfilled that request now, indicated that his answers were not set in stone, not permanent, not… _damning._ He said no now because he had to. But so, too, did Crowley imagine a picnic, and he yearned with his entire being.

_Eternity,_ Crowley knew. _I would wait for you for eternity._ And maybe it was foolishly sentimental, maybe it was gross, maybe it was too much and “too fast,” but it was his honest-to-fucking-God truth.

The demon held Aziraphale’s trust to his chest and watched the angel walk away from him, knowing, as sure as he loved, that Aziraphale’s tears were spilling in sync.

Shit.

Crowley’s forehead fell to the wheel, thermos tucked tight to his stomach like it was Aziraphale himself, frothing with nausea and too many emotions to place. Silent tears made themselves known and he sat there, still, trying to sort out his own mind.

He should have been overjoyed, he supposed, to have this conclusive, undeniable proof of Aziraphale’s affections. But it just felt like heartburn, to know that Heaven and Hell were what kept them apart. It wouldn’t have been so hard if Aziraphale had simply not felt the same, if it was a one-sided crush and their desires didn’t align. But to know that the angel shared this ache, and this want, and that it would be denied them due to a – a blessed _higher power_ that had taken _everything_ from him already…it _burned._ The Blessed Almighty would never stop taking and taking, would They? _The Lord giveth_ , supposedly, but to whom, exactly?

His throat tight and strained, Crowley let out a shuddery breath.

They two were formed of the atoms of a comprehensively, perfectly opposed nature, never meant to coexist.

And they fell in love with each other. That was their own fault.

How stupid of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Look at this godforsaken mess that you made me.  
> You taught me a secret language I can’t speak with anyone else  
> And you know damn well,  
> For you, I would ruin myself a million little times.”  
> [-“illicit affairs” by Taylor Swift,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLV2SJKWk4M) the song that wouldn’t leave me alone as I wrote this chapter.  
> I did promise you a fix, but I also didn’t make any promises not to break your hearts. And mine.


	11. time unfolds the petals for our eyes to see

It was like laying on the block, neck exposed to the large heavy blade, and making eye contact with whoever clutched the rope that held death aloft. It was like knowing they were there, knowing the blade was somewhere over him, and holding his breath for it to fall. He knew it would, eventually. When the executioner’s arms got tired, or when the audience grew restless, or when something simply decided it was time.

It felt like he should have been prepared, but he’d been waiting so long for the blade to fall that he forgot to fear it until his severed head fit the dust.

As soon as he was alone, tucked back safely in his Bentley, the lurking melancholy of a graveyard ominous around him, Crowley smacked the wheel over and over and screamed curses at nothing. He took a deep breath, but it didn’t help, nothing could help, not now. He pulled the car out onto the nighttime road with jerky motions, blind to shapes in the shadows, haunting unnoticed, passing by. All he could think of was the basket in the seat to his back, a woven cream thing, the kind of picnic basket shown in advertisements, the same kind he’d daydreamed about since Aziraphale’s harmless comment about a picnic forty years ago.

He strained his ears to hear the soft, gentle breathing of what lay inside. It sounded like any ordinary baby’s breath, yet he reacted like a human in a crime drama to the click of a cocked gun, pressed to the back of their skull. Frozen, shivering, hot.

His mind buzzed with adrenaline. His only clear thought was to call Aziraphale, but of course, his own stupid scheme with the phone networks had come back to bite him. This was just like that time he nudged aircraft manufacturers to minimize leg space on airplanes, forgetting how long his own legs are. Or how he designed socks to slip down the wearer’s heel – he’d been proud of that until he ended up with black socks bunched up under his sole. He just didn’t wear socks, after that. Same reason he never bought clothes anymore, instead creating them wholesale from the firmament; making jeans fit perfectly in stores but awkwardly once at home was _a mistake._

The music from his car radio suddenly turned on, and Freddie Mercury’s voice came out with Lucifer’s words. It’d been a long time since Lucifer had spoken to him directly, but he did, after all, have his damned son in the backseat. He supposed it was warranted now, at the culmination of millennia of taking credit for humanity’s evils, that he’d find he built up his reputation as a servant of evil perhaps _too_ well.

His only consolation was that Hell had finally stopped contacting him via termite.

So, to recap. No Aziraphale. Lucifer on his radio. Son of Satan in the backseat. Great. He briefly wondered if he should’ve miracled a car seat before internally smacking himself in the face. It might look like a baby, and breathe like a baby, and, he soon discovered, cry like a baby, but it was not a regular baby. This was the being that was going to tear apart the world he loved.

After delivering the creature to a bumbling Satanic nun – _tosesie woesies…she and Aziraphale would probably get along_ – Crowley found the first working telephone box he could and contacted Aziraphale.

The one being who would want to help him with this crazy idea he’d always known he’d choose, when the world came to an end.

(Turn the page.)

Aziraphale danced around it for a bit, spouted the usual lines, but Crowley was no idiot. The angel had already given his answer when he handed a demon a thermos full of holy water, branded with his own tartan. Even if Aziraphale couldn’t see it himself, Crowley knew where the angel’s loyalties laid. He trusted Aziraphale with everything in him. And sure, he was less…disillusioned than Crowley might’ve hoped, but that unwavering faith was not going to just evaporate overnight. Crowley could work with this.

They had time. Not a lot of it, but, Someone-willing, it would be enough.

(Skip a few pages.)

Raising a child – um, child-adjacent creature – alongside Aziraphale was shockingly domestic. When Crowley had suggested rearing the Antichrist, she hadn’t anticipated staying up late to write suitably demonic lullabies, or watching “Brother Francis” teach Warlock how to respect slugs, or sneaking out to give the peonies a good talking to since Aziraphale didn’t know how to garden for shit.

Sometimes, he didn’t want to be a she. Sometimes, they were something else, but he had to be committed to her role. It was the longest Crowley had ever been required to be a gender. She’d taken on the same gender for centuries at a time, but never had they kept one up for so long for work – it was always by choice – and it drove her up the wall. Sometimes, they just needed to ask Aziraphale to use his preferred pronouns in privacy, where he wouldn’t disrupt the image that they had to play for these traditionalist Dowlings, who would only ever have hired a _female_ nanny. She managed alright, but if trans people across the country suddenly found themselves having gender-affirming experiences, well, they were probably encouraging delinquency...or something.

Yeah, not his strongest defense.

Taking care of a child was more physically taxing than she’d realized, too. She had gotten good at faking it in her time, but it was a constant, never-ending battle to hide her pains throughout every single day. Most of the time, she soldiered through it for the sunlit hours and slept deeply at night to recover. Thank badness the walking stick worked with her gothic Mary Poppins aesthetic.

There were a lot of good moments, with Warlock. Crowley had always liked kids; they were imaginative and destructive and had so much potential to become something different as the years pulled them forward, potential for making choices about who they would be in the world. Children were always changing, always asking questions, always doing what they weren’t supposed to do. She liked the kind of parents who let them explore their curiosity and make mistakes so they could learn and grow as a result of those early tumbles.

The Dowlings weren’t much like that, but not many parents were. She did her best.

Her optimism carried her onward, but every moment that felt light still carried the sensation of sitting under rainclouds. Crowley still liked rain, even after everything, so it was not a metaphor she was a fan of. But she could think of nothing else as Warlock grew older, and every day brought her closer to what could very well be the end of everything she had ever come to cherish.

(Turn a few pages.)

Aziraphale’s black suit was covered with lemon pie and a dove feather had somehow gotten stuck in his hair. There was a smudge of cream on his cheek, right beside the curled black moustache Crowley had drawn for him that morning in Sharpie, because neither of them knew about face paint.

“Wrong boy,” Aziraphale said.

“Wrong boy,” Crowley echoed.

(Next page.)

“Why did the powers of Hell have to drag me into this, anyway?” he moaned as Aziraphale poured the wine from across the small, antique table, the space between them cluttered with two golden candelabras, a glass container of Scotch, and the expanse of a moral no-man’s-land. Why had he been chosen to deliver the basket? Heaven, why had he been chosen to go into Eden and cause trouble, and stay on Earth to cause more? Why did the universe let him fall in love with a place and a person just to have them torn away, inevitably – ineffably?

He held his tumbler by the tips of his fingers as something shifted under him, and the air suddenly smelled vaguely of dampness, the likes of which Aziraphale would never allow near his precious, ancient tomes. It was a humid heaviness – straight from the bowels of Hell.

The Antichrist had come into his powers, and suddenly, everything he’d ever done seemed pathetic, so useless in the face of…everything else. Heaven and Hell wanted their war. No one knew what God wanted and They clearly didn’t care to intervene.

“God works in mysterious ways,” Aziraphale had primly noted, once.

“God works in shitty ways, more like,” Crowley had replied. Aziraphale made a face at that.

Now, with Armageddon days away, he felt helpless. “We’re doomed,” he said simply, voice nearly cracking.

“Well then,” Aziraphale replied, lifting his glass to his lips, “welcome to the end times.”

Crowley toasted to that.

(Turn another page.)

“Shut it! I’m a demon. I’m not nice. I’m never nice.” – _I can’t be nice without consequences_ – “Nice is a four-letter-word. I will not have–“

“Excuse me, gentlemen. Sorry to break up an intimate moment…”

(Turn a few more pages.)

“Have a nice doomsday.” Was his heart breaking? He couldn’t feel anything at all. Maybe it was better that way.

(More.)

“I forgive you.” Crowley felt everything, and wished he couldn’t.

(A page is missing.)

_Aziraphale is gone._

Once, long ago, there had been an angel who helped make the stars. They weren’t terribly important, but they had their role to play. Crowley didn’t remember much about this angel. Whoever they were, whatever they dreamed, whoever they loved, he did not know. Perhaps they kept their hair in long red curls and wore a white robe and had pearly white wings. Perhaps their freckles had shimmered gold instead of just being the usual brown spots, or the irregular scattered scales. Maybe their eyes had not been serpentine, but instead were like suns in the infinite darkness of space.

The only thing he was sure of was that this angel…they had loved the stars.

But this angel did not exist anymore. They may as well have been dead. There was nothing left of them to be found in a bitter, depressed demon whose body wouldn’t cooperate, who had a hole in his chest where his heart should have been.

Was this what it was like, for that angel, so long ago, to be torn from the stars? Is that why he remembered loving those tormenting stars – so it would hurt more to know what he’d lost? If he went out there now, to Alpha Centauri or wherever, would they know him? Probably not. He was just getting maudlin and introspective, which happened when he drank too much while he was sad, if _sad_ was even the right word. He was just empty, adrift, mind wandering back to times he never wanted to think about because they hurt too much, if only to avoid thinking about the hurt of the now. He couldn’t even cry.

If he had no idea who he was or what he dreamed, he felt sure he would still know he loved Aziraphale, just as they had once loved the stars.

And Satan, it hurt so fucking much, the way his chest and stomach and throat twisted up. Did humans feel like this? Was it a physical pain reflected on their bodies, in their bones, as in the stories? Or was it all just his imagination, overactive and dramatic, marooning him in despair? The humans said despair was to turn one’s back on God, but what of when They turned Their back on him? What then?

Perhaps he simply felt that the pain _had_ to physical, to be real. It was masochistically comforting, to ache.

He caressed the half-charred cover of his souvenir and wished the world would get on with it and end already.

(Go back.)

_Why do you love the humans so much, Mother?_

_Because they are more important to me than anything else, little angel._

(Forward. We’re almost done.)

He watched his beloved Bentley explode. He’d had it since new, cared for it, and shined it up the human way. She’d taken him across the continent, carried him when his body wouldn’t do it for him, given him a place that felt a little bit like safety in unfamiliar lands, had offered an escape when he just needed to drive and not think at all. Something that was entirely his, and for his own sake. Gone.

He treasured the old girl, and he had half a mind to salute to her smoldering ashes as his aching legs collapsed under him.

But he couldn’t think about this now. Not when Aziraphale was alive – albeit in a very different body and a nice dress – and there, the Four Horsepersons–

(Skim a few lines–)

With a glance, the Antichrist brought Aziraphale’s body back. Just like that. He was here, _he’s right there, he’s alive and he’s back_ –

Crowley stumbled over and hugged him, heedless of the ten thousand reasons not to. He couldn’t remember a single one, and maybe they had all crumbled by now, dusted into mere sand running between fingers. He was shaking, he needed his angel so bad, the relief might just kill him on the spot. This was more important. This had always been more important.

Aziraphale hugged him back, briefly, enough to see the cracks, enough to weave a few ugly stitches into Crowley’s chest and draw his halves together. It was enough, for now – he wasn’t bleeding, he could heal, they would make it – almost there.

They drew back. Aziraphale offered his hand and Crowley took it. There was no universe in which he wouldn’t take it. There was no point lying to anyone, especially not themselves. They had a world to save.

(Remember, back then?)

_Mother, what are all these stars we’re making for? Where are they going to go?_

_Someplace I love dearly, as you will, too, little angel._

(New page. Breathe.)

He honestly wasn’t sure if he’d done much, in the end, to facilitate the world’s continued existence, but that was fine. He barely had the energy and wherewithal to think with words, let alone ponder his usefulness in the end days.

Still, Aziraphale was beside him. He wasn’t gone, even if the bookshop and the Bentley were, as were any prospects of a nice, long future. He had Aziraphale back and he was not letting go for anything in these last remaining hours of assured relative peace. Crowley wasn’t sure he could take it if Aziraphale tried to leave him now.

“You can stay at my place, if you like,” he offered, meaning _don’t leave me alone._

Aziraphale looked to him hesitantly. “I-I don’t think my side would like that,” he said, meaning _I don’t want to be alone, either._

Crowley had never understood Aziraphale’s unwavering faith in Heaven, and in God. Not that he, a demon ironically faithful to an angel, had much room to judge. Aziraphale had tiptoed the line of doubt when they forged the Arrangement, but even then, he still followed their commands, trusted their word. Still, the angel had stood by him when it really, truly counted, and he couldn’t hold anything against him when the world was still here, and so were they. Maybe he should have been more hurt by Aziraphale’s words from before, and maybe that hurt would come back later – assuming he lived long enough to feel it – but now? He was nothing but relieved.

So, Crowley finally spoke the words that had been on the tip of his tongue for centuries. Possibly longer, it was hard to say. “We’re on our own side,” he murmured softly.

Aziraphale didn’t argue with him, and for once, they sat in silence. It was answer enough.

When the bus arrived, it became clear that Crowley could not stand. His legs were in more pain than he’d ever remembered them being – all those heavy miracles, on top of the physical exertion of the day and the endless stress, left him worn.

Aziraphale saw Crowley struggling and miracled a wheelchair into existence without a word. Crowley’d used wheelchairs a handful of times since their invention in the 17th century, and liked using them when he had to. So, at Crowley’s weary nod, the angel helped him into it, and the public transit suddenly found itself much more disability-accessible – as it ought to have been already – and they rode on in the same silence.

There weren’t normally seats beside wheelchair spaces on buses, but Aziraphale expected there to be, so there were, and they sat side-by-side. Crowley leaned back and closed his eyes, and tried to stay awake, to relish the fact that Aziraphale was alive, to focus on what may be the last few hours of existence before Hell enacted their inevitable revenge.

Aziraphale took up Crowley’s dangling hand in his own. The contact was an unexpected comfort. Aziraphale’s hand was warm in a way that was completely different from the prickly fire in his muscles, knotting his tendons.

“Go to sleep, and you’ll wake up having dreamt of whatever you like best,” the angel whispered to the demon, sounding shy but sure.

Crowley smirked, just a bit, at the light temptation weaved into the sentence. His angel had learned much over the centuries – from the best, of course. Crowley was powerless to resist him. Besides, he knew he’d dream of Aziraphale, sitting beside him and holding his hand, so he wouldn’t have to miss out on anything at all.

The last thing he was aware of before sleep claimed him were three light squeezes to his clasped fingers.

(We’re not done. A few pages remain.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley on the bus after Armageddon, in a wheelchair, was the first image I had when I got the idea for this fic. I had no idea how long it would be before I got to write it, though, nor that it would somehow turn into so much more than that simple snapshot.  
> I hope my method for showing Armageddon was interesting! I didn’t want to skip over the retelling entirely, nor dwell too much on what is already known. Hopefully I struck a decent balance.  
> (Chapter 12 will be Sunday as usual, with the final chapter posted the day after.)  
> Edit: Forgot to mention, the hug in this chapter was inspired by [this drawing on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CFFxAgzFmGl/)


	12. in ways we accept as part of fate’s decree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so obsessed with The Night At Crowley’s Flat fics that I accidentally dedicated an entire chapter to this one scene. Does it interrupt the flow of the story? Yes. Do I regret it? Hell no.

Aziraphale apologized thrice when he woke Crowley up, even as Crowley dragged himself from the bowels of a soft sleep to wave them away. At Crowley’s go-ahead, Aziraphale pushed his chair off the bus and down the ramp. Crowley would’ve normally taken control of his own chair, thank you, but with his arms the way they were, he gave up his internal, prideful struggle and let Aziraphale lead him into his Mayfair complex and onto the lift. It was supposedly out of order, but the angel simply gave a disappointed sniff and it thought otherwise.

Aziraphale, busybody that he was, found his own form of comfort in taking off his and then Crowley’s coat once inside the flat, then running around and flicking on each light manually in the entire space before coming back and wheeling Crowley next to his sleek black sofa. Crowley watched it all with a sort of abstract fascination and amusement. Of _course_ the being who refused to try sleeping would relax by darting about like a fly trapped in a room with lots of bright windows and a flapping, neon flyswatter at his coattails.

Thankfully, Crowley had had the wherewithal to warn Aziraphale of the puddle of holy water and melted demon remains. Aziraphale stared at him for a long moment, looking like he might start crying right there, before hurrying off to clean it up without a word. He came back looking shaken, avoiding Crowley’s eyes, and bustled off to the kitchen to make tea.

Crowley looked around with a new, keen sense of awareness. Unless they came up with something very clever and very soon, both of them were going to die. The last place he was going to remember staying was in his grey, concrete flat specifically designed to please Hell.

He felt oddly detached as he contemplated the soot on his hands. The cold of the room, despite it being late summer. The soft, white lights overhead emanating a nearly ethereal glow.

“Here you are, dear,” Aziraphale said, placing a warm mug of some sort of sweet, fragrant tea in his hands, curling Crowley’s fingers around it and his own around Crowley’s. He hovered there for just a couple of beats longer than he needed to before withdrawing, and suddenly, Crowley realized he had a lot more energy than he realized.

A hand snatched out and grabbed Aziraphale’s fingers in a light, yet desperate, hold. The pathetic kind between lovers on their last lifeline. “Aziraphale,” he said, lifting his head to look at him sharply, “I’m not going to let you die.”

It was ridiculous, and sappy. He half expected Aziraphale to simply laugh at him. Instead, he swallowed thickly and blinked a few times before returning Crowley’s grasp. He nodded, once.

“Would you like to move to the couch?” he asked gently, in a tone that did not match the practical question.

Crowley took a deep breath, expelling the intense emotions swirling in him, putting them aside for later consideration. “That thing’s hard as rock,” he complained with a forced grin. “Pretty sure I’d be more comfortable on the floor.”

Aziraphale smiled as though relieved at the familiar snark, and Crowley felt his grin settle more genuinely on his lips. “Well, as I tell you every time I come here, if only there was some way to solve this…such as, perhaps, buying a sofa instead of a slab of granite for a seat?”

Something in Crowley ached deep, the memories of embers too fresh, but this banter – so ill in tone, so out of place on a night like this – was soothing it over. “You know snakes like to bask on rocks, angel,” he replied, showing off his overly long canines. He went to remove his sunglasses for extra flair and realized they were already off. “Where are my–“

“In your pocket. I didn’t think them comfortable while sleeping.”

Crowley considered pulling them out but didn’t. There was no point. “Thanks.”

Aziraphale ignored this and patted the sofa with a hand, demonstrating its sudden buoyancy, lips pressed together in a poorly suppressed smile. “How interesting. Your sofa appears to have become much softer than usual. I wonder what that could be about.”

Crowley groaned. “Leave my furniture alone. And don’t even think about saying anything to my plants – you know it took me months to repair the damage you did last time!”

“Yes, I do know that, because you wouldn’t stop complaining about it for many a month more.”

_“Angel.”_

“Right, right,” he said, not really agreeing to anything, but appearing complacent enough that Crowley couldn’t argue further. He gestured to the sofa again. “Well?”

Crowley shrugged. “Sure.”

Aziraphale, rather than walking him over as he had on the bench, lifted Crowley into his arms and carefully deposited him lengthwise across the couch, Crowley’s head suddenly propped up by pillows he swore hadn’t been there before. It was so easy to forget that the strength of a Principality laid beneath that charming smile and those manicured fingernails and a fuzzy, velvet waistcoat. Crowley would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it at least a little bit.

He could have lost this. He still might.

Aziraphale drew a blanket over Crowley as the demon shifted to find the most comfortable position. Crowley sighed and glared half-heartedly at his companion, even as he clutched the blanket to his chest. “Stop fussing over me, you…you _fusser.”_

“According to you on numerous occasions, I appear to be incapable of ever not fussing, so you’ll simply have to bear it,” Aziraphale replied serenely. The wheelchair became an armchair as Aziraphale sat beside Crowley’s head. He handed Crowley his black mug of tea again, which was still the perfect temperature.

They drank their tea, trading stories as they did – sticking to the lighter ones best they could. Aziraphale animatedly explained his journey across the world to find a receptive medium to inhabit, apparently having spent some time in America with one of those stupid religious TV weirdos they both had claimed credit for some decades ago; he pointedly left out scenes in his story of discorporation that he clearly wasn’t ready to revisit. That was fine. Crowley left out plenty about his last couple of days, too.

They talked, as though everything was normal and they didn’t sit here on the precipice of an ending, or the potential for a beginning. As though Aziraphale hadn’t actively rebelled against Heaven and Crowley hadn’t given up on the world thinking the angel was dead. As usual, actively ignoring the most important part of what they had become.

When all that remained were slightly soured tea dregs, Aziraphale set their mugs aside and clasped his hands over his belly, looking down to Crowley pointedly, tiredly. 

Crowley blinked up at him, having slunk down his cushions gradually over the conversation. Talking helped distract him from the pain more than anything else, so he lifted an eyebrow and encouraged him with a, “Yes, angel?”

Aziraphale took a deep breath. “I had a thought,” he said carefully.

“Mmm, better alert the media.”

“Har har. I am trying to say something here, my dear.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.”

“You’re insuffera – oh, nevermind.” He sighed. “It’s just that…I imagine our Head Offices are quite displeased with us.”

Crowley nodded at that, sobering as he recalled Beelzebub literally spitting flies at that American Airbase. He thought of Hell, and his interactions with the demons there over the millennia. Of Lucifer, and the snake brand that still sat on his cheek. He thought of himself, side by side with an angel for all the world to see. Hell would’ve happily thrown him in the Pits for just one good – bad? – _solid_ reason. But now? They had many to want to see him eradicated permanently.

“It’ll be holy water for me,” Crowley said simply, not even trying to sugarcoat it.

Aziraphale winced painfully. “And Hellfire for me, I suppose.”

Crowley was mildly surprised at Aziraphale’s prompt and sure conclusion. Sure, Crowley had assumed this of Heaven, but Aziraphale, who always thought the best of them? Who defended them through the slaughter of thousands? Who watched innocent Yeshua bleed out and insisted it was not his decision, as tears shone in his eyes?

How far his angel had fallen.

Crowley almost wished that he could have let Aziraphale live in a world where the Heaven he dedicated so much to and sacrificed so much for was worthy of it. But they had both known, for centuries, that Heaven and Hell had been somehow working together. Maybe Aziraphale had never completely believed it, maybe he agreed to the Arrangement to see Crowley or have more free time or something else…but after this past week, it was impossibly to deny. Gabriel and Beelzebub, whispering together and collaborating, after millennia of _the opposition_ and _the other side_ and _we are the Fallen, never forget that…_ No, it wasn’t surprising, that Aziraphale could finally voice and face what existed there all along. Aziraphale was too clever, far too clever, and he’d made his choice when he took Crowley’s hand at the end of the world. Heaven had given Aziraphale too many reasons to betray them, just as they had humanity.

That didn’t mean Aziraphale wasn’t hurting. Yet, all Crowley could feel was relief at his friend’s pain. And maybe that was horrible of him, but hey, he was a demon. He was allowed to be a little horrible.

So, at Aziraphale’s simple declaration, Crowley nodded, trying not to think of how he’d already thought Aziraphale burned that day. And now, Hellfire. There had been far too much fire in the past 24 hours for his taste.

“I don’t think they’d make me Fall,” Aziraphale continued matter-of-factly. “Heaven doesn’t have that power, only God does. And She hasn’t done that kind of thing since the First War, anyway…not to be insensitive.”

“Nah, you’re fine. Besides, Hell wouldn’t know what to do with you, anyway,” Crowley joked, as though the idea of Aziraphale Falling didn’t scare him to his shuddering core. As if he suddenly wasn’t remembering it himself. Cold and damp. “An angel better than all of Heaven? Your idea of evil would be, I don’t know, _not_ offering tea to a guest.”

“I suppose I wouldn’t be too much better at demonic schemes than you, Crowley,” he replied, because of course he did.

“Oi. Watch your mouth.”

Aziraphale tutted. After a moment, he continued, somberly, “We’ve got that prophesy I found after” – he waved a hand in the air – “everything, and I can only assume it’s about us.”

Aziraphale pulled the little charred paper out and read it aloud. _Choosing faces, playing with fire._ It was nonsense to Crowley, but Aziraphale, who’d spent a not inconsiderable amount of time poring over that Nutter’s prophesies, studied it like it could divine the future. He supposed that was, generally, the hope.

Back and forth, they tossed ideas. Most of them were terrible, and most of them were Aziraphale’s, who likewise spent a lot of time muttering to himself before shaking his head, looking displeased with his own mind.

Crowley, trying and failing not to think back over the events of the day, was half on the verge of falling asleep when his eyes suddenly flung back open with a thought - a memory.

“I don’t think there would be a way of avoiding them by staying on Earth,” Aziraphale murmured, half to himself. “They’d be able to find us, so long as we take up physical matter, and–“

“Angel.”

“Hmm?”

“Do you remember what you said, back after…at the bar?”

“Erm. Which part?”

Crowley sorted through the hazy memory – hazy due to the alcohol and Aziraphale’s lack of corporation – and squinted at the ceiling. “You said it’s a pity you couldn’t inhabit my body. But…what if you could?”

Aziraphale was silent for a long moment. When Crowley peeked at him, he looked like a lightbulb had just gone on over his head, like in an old cartoon. “Crowley. Crowley, you’re a genius,” he murmured, looking somewhere past Crowley’s shoulder but probably not seeing anything. “Our corporations are made to fit around us, but they aren’t actually us…I’d imagine we could inhabit a different body, much like I did with Madame Tracy this afternoon.”

_Angel, demon. Probably explode._ “Do you think it’d be safe?” Crowley asked, suddenly concerned. He’d spoken his idea without thinking, as usual…but what if his body hurt Aziraphale?

“I don’t see why not. They’re just bodies.”

“Bodies made in Heaven and Hell, inhabited by an angel and a demon.”

Aziraphale gave him a tender look. “You said we’re on our own side now. I am…I am going to believe that to be true.”

Crowley snarled, even as he felt himself warm from the inside. “Doesn’t change where the bodies were made.”

Nonetheless, the sun was rising, and they were out of options, out of time.

“I don’t think we’re really that different, in the end,” Aziraphale said softly. He turned those bright eyes on him, golden beams cast across his face. “Do you?”

He knew it wasn’t playing fair. What could Crowley possibly say to that? He worked his jaw a moment before settling on, “Our cores would have to touch. Would you…really be okay with that?”

To angels and demons, touch was…complicated. They all wore flesh bags, yes, but that wasn’t _them_. It was something more like a coat, something atop themselves that they put on and took off as they pleased, much like genders. Aziraphale and Crowley, having lived on Earth for so long, were more attached to theirs, and found comfort in their forms. Nonetheless, touch with human corporations? It felt nice to hug, or hold hands, or kiss – all things they’d done per changing social mores – but what they were? Their essences, their cores, their actual _self?_

Those never touched. Not even between angels, and definitely not between demons. It was vulnerable and required absolute faith that angels only claimed for their God, and demons had long since lost the ability for. There were no secrets, no barriers.

Wordlessly, Aziraphale held out his hand in answer, and Crowley took it once again.

_There was no universe in which he wouldn’t take it. There was no point lying to anyone, especially not themselves._

It was not the handhold of comrades in battle like at the airbase, or for comfort as on the bus, and instead was one meant for business. This was just another facet of the Arrangement, which had been formed just like this a thousand years ago, with a handshake that meant so much more.

Simultaneously – on another layer of matter and meaning, where limitation was metaphorical – they reached out to each other in tandem, and their cores touched for the first time.

That first contact to Crowley’s frayed edges, to his forever open wounds, was a fingertip pressed to a purple, sore bruise – but only for an instant, before the fringe of his existence was suddenly flooded with warmth, with comfort, with a careful reverence and regard that didn’t want to hurt. Perhaps it should have, but he could feel Aziraphale’s caution, his care. His angel would never hurt him.

All they needed to do was pass by one another, and yet, they lingered. They swirled around each other playfully in this dimension, passing like fingers combing through hair, like creating friction with hands to generate heat, like breathing in someone else’s exhale – but in each instance, it was a soul, a heart, it was Everything they had ever been and would ever be. Souls tapped inside souls. Wings fluttered in their tier of reality, feathers threading together, weaving a tapestry of monochrome. Crowley couldn’t seetastesmellhear, he could only _feel_ , and Aziraphale was everywhere, in everything, and he was all that mattered, filling in his gaps, and himself filling Aziraphale’s. Crowley hadn’t anticipated how intimate it would feel, for there to be nothing between them, not a single atom or molecule to pass through the barrier at which they intertwined. But it was welcome. So, so welcome, to hold him close on every level of truth, to trust in his presence entirely.

Though lifetimes seemed to pass this way, mere seconds ticked by before they resettled in old, new bodies. His face was warm, and Crowley felt disoriented, almost tipsy on the sensation, and more alive than ever.

They opened their eyes at the same time, hands releasing, and Crowley nearly jumped at the golden slits staring at him from the armchair. Seeing how grimy his face was, he suddenly felt bad for not cleaning up before swapping over.

Aziraphale’s body was plush and wide in a way that made Crowley feel protected, like having a barrier between himself and the world – or like being wrapped up in Aziraphale’s arms themselves. It was the feeling of stealing a partner’s T-shirt or hoodie; ultimately ill-fitting, but cherished because of who it belonged to.

“It worked,” Aziraphale murmured in Crowley’s deeper, slightly scratchy voice as they withdrew their hands. He looked startled when he spoke, like he’d forgotten his voice would be different.

“It did,” Crowley replied with a smile. He meant for it to be a smirk, but this face smiled so easily. He wondered if his eyes were twinkling like Aziraphale’s did when he was excited about something. “You look great, angel,” he added with a wink. “Loving the hair.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Aziraphale intoned so fondly that Crowley would’ve blushed if it hadn’t been his own voice saying it to him. His face scrunched up in concern. “Are you alright? Does it hurt anywhere?”

Crowley blinked before looking down at his body, a movement that felt foreign and strange, just like wearing a human corporation had the first time he ever put it on. The pain in his core, the wound still unsealed from his Fall so long ago, felt the same as ever – neither better nor worse for the angel’s touch and corporation. He wasn’t recovered from…well, the whole week, but Aziraphale’s body felt pain in the same way Crowley’s did. “No difference here,” he said. “You?”

“I’m perfectly fine. Are you sure you’ll be okay in–“

“I’ll manage. I always do. Here, let me…” Crowley reached a hand up and snapped, clearing Aziraphale’s – well, technically, Crowley’s – body of leftover soot from the bookshop fire and the Bentley. A plume of smoke puffed in the air for a moment before clearing, leaving behind the fresh, spicy scent of a demonic miracle.

“Oh! Thank you, dear,” Aziraphale said, looking at Crowley the way he had back at that old nunnery or whatever it was now, when Crowley had blown the paint off his coat. Aziraphale smoothed his long hands down his freshly cleaned shirt before snatching them away, seemingly embarrassed about running his fingers down his friend’s chest so brazenly.

Crowley shifted uncomfortably and almost told him it was fine but decided that was probably even weirder. “No problem.”

They sat in silence a moment before one of them cracked a grin and they laughed a bit at the absurdity of it all.

“Having scaly feet is _strange,”_ Aziraphale said with interest, lifting one up for inspection. “They’re cold. No wonder you have such a vendetta against snow.”

“You know what’s actually strange? _Not_ having them.” Crowley flexed his toes within the tartan socks and well-loved Oxfords. They felt squishy and vulnerable, something a snake could sink fangs into.

Aziraphale laughed at whatever expression Crowley was making, and Crowley frantically tried to hold on to the moment.

With the desperation of a man on death row, he considered his companion. Even in the wrong body, all his mannerisms shone through. The rigid posture, hands carefully placed over his stomach, the pinch between his eyebrows when he was thinking hard about something, the bright laughter that forced a body’s vocal cords to giggle in a way Crowley had never done in his life. It was so clearly Aziraphale in there that Crowley felt his heart thud painfully, and he yearned, as he always did.

“If we make it through this,” Aziraphale said, catching Crowley’s lingering gaze, “what will we do?”

“Whatever we want,” Crowley replied softly, without hesitation. _I’m going to tell you I love you, with words._

Aziraphale took up Crowley’s hand in both of his. They were in the wrong bodies, so it should have felt incorrect, but it didn’t. “I very much look forward to that, my dear,” he whispered.

Time was up. Dawn caressed the sky. They each cradled the heart of their companion carefully, then tucked them away where no one would see, for safekeeping. They would take care of each other to the end.

“Stay out of trouble,” Crowley said with a smirk as he left to check on the bookshop, as they’d agreed on.

Aziraphale offered a small smile at the old joke – nearly as old as they were. “You know trouble follows me,” he replied, strange, yellow eyes glittering like he wouldn’t change that for the world.

When they reluctantly parted ways, their gaze held multitudes. And when Crowley turned to go, he prayed to the God who cast him out, who hurled him to the deepest Pit of Their creation so long ago, asking for just one thing. Just the one.

_Mother,_ _protect him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter up tomorrow. I can hardly believe it.


	13. the sacred simplicity of you at my side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My entire summary for this chapter in my outline was “Fluffy epilogue, probably.” I think that about sums it up.

Crowley took slightly awkward strides in slightly too short legs, trying to maintain his composure. Images flashed through his head as he stalked down the sidewalk and cut across the grass, reminding himself with each step not to run, not to draw attention to himself. There was no need to rush. And yet, his pace quickened as he thought of angels sneering, a column of Hellfire, of Aziraphale walking in and burning…

Of course, he hadn’t, because it had been Crowley, not Aziraphale, who did that. And he had stepped out. But Crowley was a demon, and demons trust Hell least of all.

He neared their agreed meeting space – a bench in Berkeley Square, not one they’d used before – eyes frantically darting as he tried not to wring his hands. What was it about this body that wanted to fidget so?

The instant his eyes landed on Aziraphale, his own figure in lanky black, any semblance of control that remained evaporated. Aziraphale was already standing as Crowley approached, looking delighted and opening his mouth to say something, and Crowley drew him into a tight hug without a word.

They hugged just like this at the Airbase. When fear of loss overrode the fear of rebuke.

Aziraphale didn’t hesitate to return the embrace. They clutched each other for a few long, desperate and grateful moments, feeling the other’s diaphragm pressing intimately with each inhale and exhale. Crowley’s chin dug into Aziraphale’s shoulder as, just like that morning, their essences danced around each other gleefully, lovingly, gently, before withdrawing – though not entirely, mingling like a breath caressing the neck.

Crowley pressed his nose against white blonde curls and breathed in deep, relishing in the scent of whatever sweet shampoo Aziraphale’s barber used, running his fingers over the soft give of a familiar and beloved cream coat, cherishing the feeling of two broad hands pressed carefully between his shoulder blades.

He could have lost this, and he didn’t.

When they finally drew back, Crowley nearly collapsed, having gone through the entirety of the ordeal in Heaven on fumes and adrenaline. Now that he was safe and the effects of a life-or-death scenario were wearing off, he felt every step he’d taken come for his corporation at once. Aziraphale held him up as they sat together on the bench, Crowley leaning heavily into the angel’s side and not feeling a bit sorry about it. Aziraphale let him.

“We did it,” Aziraphale whispered after a moment. Even though Crowley’s eyes were closed, he could hear the soft, wondering smile on the angel’s face. “We really did it.”

Crowley grinned helplessly, shifting to lean even more against the angel’s side. “Do you really think they’ll leave us alone after this?”

Aziraphale hummed. “I do. For a bit, at least. I’d imagine Heaven and Hell are both keen to forget about the whole fiasco. Terribly embarrassing for them all.”

Crowley nodded against Aziraphale’s shoulder, not hard enough to dislodge himself. “Kind of feels like it was always going to be this way, doesn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s just…” he waved a hand around them. “It’s always been you and me, and all our humans here, together. Our allegiances were made a long time ago, angel. Neither of us can pretend we haven’t loved them all from the start.”

Aziraphale carefully placed his hand atop Crowley’s, which lay on his knee. The light press of his fingertips sent sparks up his arms. “And we don’t have to pretend that now.”

Crowley sat up, then, to look at Aziraphale properly, words already forming on his tongue. Unfortunately, the pain in his back twisted up through his stomach and he visibly cringed.

“Oh, my dear!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “Let’s get you back to your flat, yes? You need to lie down.”

Crowley tried to wave him off. “I was going to suggest the Ritz–“

“Don’t be absurd. We’ll go celebrate another day.”

“Ugh. Fine. I’m sorry–“

“Don’t you start with that nonsense. You’ve been through so much and done so much for so long, and now it’s time for you to relax and ease these pains of yours. I won’t hear of anything otherwise.”

Crowley chuckled as Aziraphale pouted at him. “Alright, alright! Not my flat, though. You need to see your bookshop.”

Aziraphale grinned, clearly delighted at the prospect. “Are you sure that’s not because my sofa is softer than yours?”

“Oh, shut it.”

They went back to the bookshop, Crowley gratefully in a wheelchair. He pretended not to notice that Aziraphale had somehow made the handles on the back tartan-patterned and silently reminded himself to fix it later. And if he forgot to do so, well, Aziraphale was probably going to miracle them back on, anyway. Just saving them both the trouble if he forgot to, really.

There was a door in the backroom that Crowley was pretty sure opened to a staircase that led into the empty flat over the shop. Crowley had been betting with himself for decades now that Aziraphale had entirely forgotten it was there, and was surprised when Aziraphale pushed the wheelchair right up to it. The door opened for them, and, despite Aziraphale’s snark on sofas, he led Crowley into a Victorian-style bedroom. The bed in the center had a lavish cream headboard outlined in twisting copper opulence, numerous plush pillows, and a carefully-tucked duvet in – of all things – black. The white lampshades over gold bases, large-mirrored vanity, and detailed rug in blues and browns, all spoke of everything both very posh and very Aziraphale.

Crowley gaped for a moment, then began laughing. “Of course, this is your bedroom! Of course, it is. And here I thought you never slept.”

“Well, I don’t,” Aziraphale admitted sheepishly. “But reading in bed is its own brand of pastime that armchairs do fail to emulate.”

Tipping his head back to look at Aziraphale, Crowley enjoyed the unflattering angle that he could only see as utterly flattering, nonetheless. “Black duvet?”

Aziraphale blushed. “Made me feel safe,” he admitted quietly.

Crowley blinked slowly, then tilted his head forward to avoid that earnest, tender expression, even though all he wanted was to soak it up.

With an overdramatic flourish, the demon tossed his sunglasses somewhere and stood up, flopped on the bed with a sigh, and snapped to change into his preferred black silk pajamas. Aziraphale tutted as Crowley rearranged himself under the covers and sank deep into the pillow mountain. It was the most comfortable thing he’d ever laid on.

“Angel, I think your bed is eating me alive,” he teased, just to be annoying. “I’ll sink right through the floor.”

Aziraphale sat on the edge of the bed and simply smiled at his antics. “You should rest.”

“Mmm.” Crowley’s eyelids were already half-drooping from how comfortable and safe he felt. “Nah.” _I’d rather look at you,_ he didn’t say.

Aziraphale looked at him like he heard the thought, anyway. Then, he took a deep breath and visibly gathered courage before leaning over and planting a feather-light kiss on Crowley’s forehead.

Crowley lay there gaping, surrounded by Victorian draperies and drowning in cream pillows and covered delicately in the plushest duvet he’d ever touched. Aziraphale sat up straight, looking around the room like he had never seen it, bright red.

“Angel,” he croaked.

Aziraphale’s looked back at him, eyes shining, and twin tears rolled down his cheeks, catching briefly on his smiling lips. Crowley reached out blindly, unable to tear his eyes away, and Aziraphale hand caught his.

“Angel–“

Aziraphale shook his head. “We’re here together, and we’re safe,” he murmured thickly, swallowing back the tidal wave of emotions that threatened them both. “And I’m never going to walk away from you again, I promise.”

Crowley was drowning in pillows, and in Aziraphale’s earnest eyes. It was everything. It was too much and not enough. He wanted to live in this moment, cherish it and make it last as long as possible. Eternity. But the tendrils of slumber wrapped around him and his eyelids drifted closed, even as he tried to search for the words to reply.

On the precipice of sleep, he remembered holding hands with Aziraphale on the bus the night before, not even 24 hours earlier. His angel had squeezed his hand three times.

_Ah,_ Crowley thought, and he repeated the gesture as sleep claimed him.

~*{O}*~

Crowley woke up feeling utterly blissful and relaxed. He stared at the ceiling in confusion, sorting through his memories, trying to remember everything that had happened. It seemed so impossible. Maybe it had all been a dream, and Armageddon was still about to happen, and the War would begin and wipe everything away.

He forced himself to sit up, and stared with golden eyes at the elaborate, copper and cream room he was sleeping in. Nope, not a dream.

Huh. Brilliant.

There was an armchair beside him – he recognized it as the twin to the one from his flat, or perhaps it _was_ the one from his flat – with an abandoned book on the cushion. Crowley reached a hand over and found it still warm. Aziraphale had been watching over him, just like he had so, so long ago, when everything between them was mysterious and new. The thought made him flush and he shoved his face into a pillow for a moment to regain his composure. This didn’t help because the pillow still smelled like Aziraphale’s cologne. Why was he so pathetic all of a sudden?

Probably because he had always been.

“Crowley, you’re awake!”

Crowley sat up at the sound of his angel’s voice, turning to see him sans jacket, clutching his mug of cocoa and two more books, assumedly for when he finished his current read. The demon grinned helplessly. Oh, he had it bad and he wouldn’t change a blessed thing.

“G’ morning, angel,” he drawled in a sleep-scratchy voice, leaning back against the pillow cascade.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Aziraphale corrected, returning the smile. “But good morning, nonetheless.”

“How long has it been?”

“A fortnight exactly.”

“Gosh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to sleep so long.”

“You needed it. Are you feeling better?” Aziraphale asked, placing his items on the nightstand and sitting on the edge of the bed, as before.

“Leagues. What’ve you been doing? Or, more accurately, how many books did you get through while I was asleep?”

Aziraphale hummed. “A few.”

“A fortnight – that’s two weeks. Gotta be at least a dozen.”

“Well…it wasn’t fewer than a dozen.”

Crowley smirked. “Never change.”

Aziraphale gave him a look that tried to be irritated and missed by – oh, well over a mile. He drew in a deep breath and gathered some sort of determination in the set of his shoulders, clasping his hands together as he faced Crowley with his entire body. “I’ve…been thinking of what I wanted to say when you awoke,” Aziraphale said carefully. “I…feel that I have much to apologize for, in retrospect.”

Crowley sat up properly, demonstrating that he was listening.

“I’ve said some hurtful things over the years, but…recent events…there is no excuse for my behavior, and I said some truly terrible things to you that I did not mean. I lied about the Antichrist, and I lied about how I – I regard you, and I…well, I really wasn’t that…nice.” Though the angel was looking down now, Crowley saw tiny tears fall from his face to his hands. “I am so, so sorry, my dear.”

Crowley reached out and placed his hand over Aziraphale’s fidgeting ones, quieting their movement, and spoke as gently as he knew how. “Aziraphale, I know why you’ve done what you’ve done. I don’t blame you at all and I never, ever have. But, if it helps, I forgive you.”

The angel’s eyes shone as he turned them on Crowley. “I don’t deserve you.”

“That’s not true, angel,” Crowley said helplessly. “You…you deserve everything.”

Aziraphale swallowed, tears continuing to make their way down his face. “I should have chosen you a long time ago.”

Crowley shook his head, reaching his free hand to pointlessly wipe away the tears that cascaded in torrents. “You couldn’t. They would have hurt you or much worse.” He thought of an execution, not even a facsimile of a trial. “We’ve just seen what might have been if we had made a different choice too soon. Besides…” He smiled softly in a way any proper demon would be ashamed of. “I loved you through all of it.”

Suddenly, Crowley was being hugged again, and his best friend sobbed against his neck. Crowley pulled his own arms tight around him, both legs flung around Aziraphale’s waist to pull him even closer. He hugged his angel like a snake, like he’d always wanted to, for so, so long.

“I love you, I love you, I _love_ you,” Aziraphale whispered, choked, repeating and repeating as though to make up for the thousands of times when the words were thought and never said. Crowley sat there, no choice but to take the onslaught of affection, and having no idea what to do with it, how to handle it. He could feel how the words strangled in Aziraphale’s throat, like they’d been shoved down for ages, eons, eras.

They had been.

“I love you, too,” Crowley croaked back, helpless to do anything but, his own tears spilling over and landing in dew droplets among Aziraphale’s spindly curls. And wasn’t that something? That word, that amazing word, _too_ , as in _I love you as well,_ as in _I love you back,_ as in _I love you and you love me, and we can say it–_

Two lovers sat together, wrapped in the safety of each other’s arms, night fallen hushed around them. Their hands and hearts trembled, the relief of returning to the chest whence it once belonged. They openly sobbed without shame. The discordant pangs of hiding a love well-trod found a release, for the first time in many millennia, giving way to the soothing ache of a bandaged wound.

They would need time, so much time, to fully heal. And they knew even then that there would be scars left behind. And yet, the opportunity to heal was one they had never had, and that was enough, for that moment. To let themselves feel everything they had denied themselves. Every heartbreak, every joy.

Their first love was humanity and the Earth, as it had always been. They loved it all the more, then, for giving them a place to fall in love with each other, too.

Dawn spilled through the wooden slats of the blinds, illuminating the room in purples and oranges. It was just shy of day, and night had not yet released its grasp. Rainfall fell soft and misty as the dawn, lingering droplets splattering against the exterior of the windowpane. Tears subsided, the only sound in the room their even breathing, not quite in sync, but deep and comforting and human. They did not need to breathe, but they also didn’t need to fall in love, so Crowley didn’t see the point in overthinking it. He’d never been one to do the things he was supposed to.

When they finally pulled away and Crowley saw Aziraphale’s eyes dancing tenderly with adoration and joy, he knew with total clarity just how gone he was for this angel. Not a bit demonic, and that was okay. It was okay.

This was an ending. Here was the last page, when the back cover softly thumped to close off the narrative. This was when the book was returned to its shelf with a wistful sigh, and the bookmark placed carefully in a jar on the nightstand for later reuse.

This story was complete, and there was no outline for a sequel. They would have to decide these things for themselves. Crowley was sure they’d do it with style.

~*{O}*~

_“How angelic of you.”_

_“That is rather the point of being an angel.”_

_“Is that what they’re calling it, nowadays? Shielding demons from sky water is just the usual agenda for you feathery lot?”_

_“Erm. Extending grace to a – a fellow creature is only natural.”_

_“Nothing personal, then?”_

_“Of course, not.”_

~*{O}*~

It was a bit of a drive, but well worth it in Crowley’s mind. The space was ideal. They were far from the city, no sign of smog, the edges of their vision girded with forestry and the field of grasses long-stemmed and secluded.

“You’ve outdone yourself, my dear,” Aziraphale commented, peering about as they stood beside the Bentley, one hand still hovering atop the passenger door as they took in the sights. “How long has it been since the sky was so blue?”

Crowley smiled, pleased at the praise, and said nothing as they traipsed around to the boot of the Bentley and pulled out a small cooler and their walking stick. They wore a black sundress, interspersed with red woven swirls, and black boots that came up to their knees. The sunglasses were left in the Bentley. “We’re having a picnic, angel. I’m not about to do so under England’s gloom and doom just because this island is cursed with eternal dampness.”

Aziraphale giggled, themself wearing the usual comfortable slacks, button-up, and a daring navy waistcoat. They closed their door, sidling up beside Crowley to take the basket. “Where are you thinking? There’s a lovely null just there, or we could go closer to the trees for shade…”

“Don’t worry, got a place picked out,” Crowley replied. Without elaboration, they headed off in a direction and Aziraphale quickly followed, beaming.

It was positively idyllic. Almost miraculously so. But sometimes, life is miraculous simply because it is.

It only took a few minutes to find the space Crowley had staked out just the week before, when Aziraphale had hesitantly asked them if they’d be interested in having that promised picnic from so long ago. Crowley hadn’t exactly forgotten about it, not at all, but they hadn’t expected Aziraphale to bring it up again, especially when opportunities to do so had come and gone before now. They should’ve know better, of course, having seen how ravenous for life Aziraphale was, now that it was no longer denied them. Someone, the angel had even dragged them out _bowling_ last month. What was the world coming to?

Crowley would have it no other way.

So, Crowley selected the locale and Aziraphale prepared the food – a mix of each of their favorites if Crowley knew their best friend at all. Which, after all this time, they did. A creek streamed idly along nearby, adding the soft sound of twinkling waters over pebbles to the light stirring of nearby leaves and occasional bird call. The view was spectacular, and it was private, and the world was their oyster, so to speak.

Without hesitation, Crowley dropped the cooler and, using the walking stick for support, eased themself to sprawl dramatically in the long grass. They felt the soil, still cool deep behind the grasses, press a soothing chill through the thin black fabric. Sunlight dappled their skin between the dark green blades framing their form. Breathing out a comfortable sigh, Crowley looked up to the Edenic skies with clouds shaped like ducks to see Aziraphale looking down at them with a private little smile on their face.

“What?” Crowley asked, yellow eyes blinking, suddenly shy.

“You’re lying down in the grass,” Aziraphale said simply.

“Yes? It’s called _basking,_ angel, what’re you…” Crowley paused. “Oh.”

A memory flooded their senses, one nearly as old as everything around them. A different sunny day, the same – but new – Earth. A snake demon in the grass and an angel guardian standing beside them. Strangers and enemies, wary of each other, unsure of what to think. Unknowing what lay before them. And, even then, a spark, just a touch. A hint that they were creating something new just by being themselves, together.

Crowley’s expression softened as they gazed up at their angel, their Aziraphale, their best friend, the love of their life, their life partner, their everything. There were so many words to delineate what they were, and Crowley liked all of them.

Propped up on one elbow, Crowley held their other hand out to Aziraphale. “Join me?”

Aziraphale chuckled lightly. “I’ll be covered in grass stains.”

“I’ll take care of you.”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley, unable or unwilling to swallow back some very strong emotion as a bright smile overtook their face.

They put the basket down beside the cooler, and without breaking eye contact, took Crowley’s hand. “I know you will,” they said quietly. “I trust you.”

Crowley tugged hard and Aziraphale fell into the grasses beside them, spluttering, and Crowley laughed and laughed. “Still a demon,” they reminded in a singsong tone as Aziraphale brushed a hand through their unruly curls and checked their waistcoat for dirt.

Fighting a smile and failing, Aziraphale pulled Crowley in to plant a kiss right over the snake on their temple. “Fiend.”

Crowley melted at the simple kiss, still so extraordinary after all this time. Human touch was strange, and, like all things human, they loved it. “I’m up to no good, naturally.”

“Oh, I think you’re up to plenty of good.”

“Oi! This is slander!”

“You’ll survive it.”

Crowley rolled their eyes as they interlocked their fingers between Aziraphale’s. “I love you, you bastard.”

“I love you too, darling.”

Crowley choked for a moment, even though Aziraphale always replied in kind to these declarations. They weren’t sure they’d ever get used to it, just being able to hear the words so plain, to say them back. They didn’t want to. “So,” they said. “What’s for lunch?”

As Aziraphale launched into a detailed explanation of the meal they’d planned out for their picnic – which included an interlude to summon a blanket to lay in the grasses when they realized, nostalgia or not, that was simply more comfortable – Crowley sat back and took it all in. They took in the wind, the sky, the company. Their Earth was a beautiful place to be, a beautiful place to love and be loved.

This was their eternity. In a century, and in ten, and in ten millennia, this was what their existence looked like. It looked like a world that promised it would be okay, and it looked like someone who saw their shattered heart and cradled it like stardust, and it looked like being gifted theirs in turn and promising to protect it.

It looked like a world where love took any shape, between any people.

And Crowley saw, Bless it all…that it was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Is it not terribly perfect that this fic happened to come out to 13 chapters?)  
> Well, there you have it. This is the longest completed story I’ve written in quite a while, at least a number of years, and definitely the longest I’ve posted online (this baby’s over 100 pages long!). I remember when I started, I thought it would be 15-18K TOPS. Ha. The naiveté. As with any project, it had its ups and downs, and life tried to sabotage me multiple times, but I’m so happy to have written it. I learned so much in doing so.   
> Thank you all for joining me on this little adventure, and for your amazing support along the way! Reading your comments brought me so much joy, and those of you who kept coming back and reading, commenting, chatting with me – you’re what keeps these stories alive, y’know? It is only when a story is received that it’s truly finished, so thank you.  
> “So we just hold on fast,  
> Acknowledge the past  
> As lessons exquisitely crafted,  
> Painstaking drafted  
> To carve us as instruments  
> That play the music of life.  
> For we don’t realize  
> Our faith in the prize  
> Unless it’s been somehow elusive.  
> How swiftly we choose it,  
> The sacred simplicity  
> Of you at my side.”


End file.
